Heavy Midnites

A carefully curated collection of pizza party classics, fist explosions, international adrenaline-pumpers, ‘80s funbombs, white-hot laugh factories, total freakazoids and more. But this is no MST3K chucklethon; this is a dedicated study of all that is, and can be, AWESOME. Nothing makes us happier than: 1) B-list pics delivering A-list thrills; and 2) the glorious time when the weathered faces of Warren Oates and Charles Bronson were marquee idols. Kick off your weekend in style with your newest cinematic obsession! Follow Heavy Midnites on FB and Twitter!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Escape From New York

11/28/2015 - MIDNITE

Live Set from DJ Quiz Kid Donnie Smith

The world’s greatest leader is a hostage in the most dangerous place on Earth. Now only the deadliest man alive can save him. John Carpenter’s pulse-pounding action smasher is the pinnacle of big screen badassery, a timeless cult classic of defiant anti-hero cool that helped usher in a flawless decade of film perfection for the genre auteur. And Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken is cinema’s supreme symbol of renegade radness, an eye-patched outlaw equally adept at cracking skulls and cracking wise. There’s no doubt about it, Escape From New York is the ultimate post-apocalyptic jolt, a breakneck thrill ride that’s equal parts style, energy, and attitude, made by a team firing on all cylinders. It’s got a blazing soundtrack from Carpenter & Alan Howarth, stunning scope cinematography by Dean Cundey, and the manliest supporting cast ever assembled: Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton & Tom frickin’ Atkins! It’s a must-see for midnight maniacs!

HEAVY MIDNITES: A Fistful of Fingers (US Premiere!)

11/21/2015 - MIDNITE

“Loaded with unashamedly sophomoric humor, but fired with a kind of early Richard Lester-esque elan that doesn’t run out of gas, A Fistful of Fingers shows more wit and invention than most of its no-budget Brit saddlemates and announces a precocious talent in 20-year-old Edgar Wright.” – Variety, 1995

The greatest Western ever made (in Somerset) is finally here! To celebrate its 20th anniversary, we’ve unearthed Edgar Wright’s nearly-impossible-to-see debut feature for its long-overdue US PREMIERE! A wildly funny, stupefyingly silly Spaghetti Western spoof, A Fistful of Fingers is a jaw-dropping gag-a-minute mashup of Sergio Leone, Monty Python and the Zucker Brothers, hilariously fueled by its young cast & crew’s can’t miss enthusiasm and teen spirit attitude. It’s a one-of-a-kind parody packed wall-to-wall with irreverent humor, dusty charm and pop culture obsession, every frame filled with Wright’s unmistakable & completely contagious love for movie-making. Don’t miss this opportunity to be one of the first to experience the film that launched a stellar career!

Prepare for a relentless assault on your eyeballs, with two cult trash brain-thrashers that’ll have you lose your lunch and pummel your mind into mush. ‘Cause Ladies of the ‘80s is going out with a BANG, saving the biggest, baddest lo-fi ragers for last, to lay waste to any argument that this wasn’t the best weekend ever!

BLOOD DINER

First they greet you, then they eat you! Take a seat at Blood Diner, a hyperactive fast food gross out that packs more insanity into 88 minutes than most filmmakers muster in a thousand lifetimes. Director Jackie Kong knows that enough is never enough, piling on the goofs, gags and gore at a feverish pace, seizing every opportunity to push the limits of bad taste in pursuit of good times. Yep, this totally bonkers black comedy update of H.G. Lewis’ Blood Feast is overflowing with demented lunacy, talking brains, and topless aerobics, as two restaurateur brothers dismember body parts to prepare a bloody buffet for their cannibal goddess. So get ready to overdose on gruesome absurdity with one of the greatest splatstick flesh-fryers to have ever escaped the video store era!

Dir. Jackie Kong, 1987, 35mm, 88 min.

SPOOKIES

In one of the most convoluted production histories in all of psychotronic cinema (seriously, read The Dissolve’s5,000 word exposé), the film’s fickle financier sacked the original directors and their near-complete flick to bring in Troma veteran Genie Joseph to completely retool the movie. Ultimately cutting half the existing footage, restructuring what was left and then adding 40 minutes of newly shot insanity, Spookies is a wild experience, a nonsensical brain bomb that brings a raging party of kitchen-sink attitude and Fangoria FX while unleashing a dizzying array of oozing slime and monstrous beasties, hellish lizards, skeletal reapers, lust-crazed muck men, glowing brains and a full-scale spider woman transformation! It’s a mind-numbing blitz of on-the-spot ingenuity, they-can’t-do-that! continuity and jaw-dropping stupidity that turns a demonic game of hide-and-seek into a night of unrelenting terror. You’ve never experienced anything like it. UNTIL TONIGHT!

A crash course in the Corman Film School of ‘80s grindhouse gold! Perhaps more than any other producer, Roger Corman has successfully tapped into a powder keg of emerging talent, attracting the brightest minds birthed from the drive-in explosion of DIY cinema. With the rise of an insatiable new home audience, he was quick to fill video store shelves, orchestrating the perfect intersection of opportunity and artistry to help usher in a brief golden age for young female filmmakers hungry to cut their teeth behind the camera.

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP

Sea beasts on the prowl for human mates! Corman veteran Barbara Peeters (Bury Me An Angel, Summer School Teachers) directs the lean ‘n mean ecological monster mash Humanoids from the Deep, crafting one of the most efficiently devastating creature flicks to ever wash ashore, and one of the best illustrations why you shouldn’t make out at the beach. A small fishing town is not prepared when an army of gilled mermen arise from their watery homes to fulfill their need to spawn. It’s gooey, gloppy and filled with carnage, a depraved sleaze-o-rama from which Peeters notoriously tried to remove her name when the producers added more boobs ‘n blood without her consent. Featuring early work by effects master Rob Bottin (The Thing), razor-sharp editing by Cinefamily fave Mark Goldblatt, and a rousing score by multi-Oscar-winning composer James Horner. Heck, the film is so stacked with talent that Terminator writer/producer Gale Ann Hurd was even the production assistant!
Dir. Barbara Peeters, 1980, 35mm, 80 min.
35mm Print Courtesy of the Academy Film Archive

THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE

Schedule permitting, director Amy Holden Jones will join us in person to discuss! Penned by feminist icon and Rubyfruit Jungle author Rita Mae Brown as a full-fledged parody, director Amy Holden Jones wisely balances the line, playing it straight so the film works both as a white knuckle thrill-ride and a pointed commentary on the male-driven stalk-and-slash cycle. The Slumber Party Massacre is one of the most-beloved of the era, the ultimate driller-killer slashterpiece, a streamlined tour de force pulsing with energy that barrels forward while piling up bodies, pizza, snappy dialogue and phallic imagery, as a wide-eyed, power-tool-wielding maniac crashes the high school basketball team’s pajama jam. One thing’s for sure, no one’s getting any sleep tonight!

Think college tests are tough? The Thetas are about to take a final exam where the stakes are not pass/fail but live/die. A surprisingly late entry in the Halloween knock-off craze from one-and-done writer/director Carol Frank, Sorority House Massacre is a hypnotic dream puzzle via slice ‘n dice slasher, equal parts Elm Street blurred reality and Michael Myers unstoppable terror, a potent & stylish mid-decade mind-melter packed with teased hair, pastel fashion and outrageous attitude. While slow motion nightmares and ominous blood-fueled visions plague the new sorority sister, a crazed killer escapes a mental institution intent on striking again. Could the two be connected?

A maniac is killing strippers and Detective Sheehan has only one weapon with which to stop him: her body. Dark and violent, Stripped to Kill is a startling Los Angeles nightcrawler, a vicious neon noir empowered by writer/director Katt Shea, and stars tv mainstay Kay Lenz as a cop undercover as an exotic dancer on the hunt for a ferocious killer. The former UCLA student, model and first-time helmer strives to show these performers in a way never seen before, not just for sexploitation and titillation, but as a tight sorority of artists overlooked and underestimated by mainstream society. Peppered with a colorful supporting cast including My Two Dads’ Greg Evigan as the partner/love interest and Three’s Company’s Norman Fell as the hardboiled club owner, Stripped to Kill demands respect as one of the crowning achievements from the Skinemax heyday of late night erotic thrillers.

Ladies of the '80s: A Decade of Horror Directed by Women - Pet Sematary & The Oracle Double Feature!

10/23/2015 - 7:30PM

Presented by HEAVY MIDNITES & Women of Cinefamily!

During the golden age of big screen fright fests and savage video store shockers, a new wave of female filmmakers emerged to put their personal mark on some of the best genre films of the decade. This weekend’s showcase highlights some of their leading contributions, with all films screening from insanely rare 35mm prints! To get us started, the boney grip of undead terror rises from the grave, with two eerie chillers that will pump ice through your veins! What better way to kick off your weekend than with a bonafide cult classic AND a wild exploitation obscurity—paired on the same ticket?

PET SEMATARY

In the ‘80s Stephen King was a legitimate brand name, the ubiquitous Master of the Macabre, and multiplexes were inundated with a deluge of big-screen adaptations. But Pet Sematary isn’t just one of the good ones, it’s one of the absolute greatest—and not just because King wrote the screenplay himself. Director Mary Lambert (then a young filmmaker making music videos for Madonna and Janet Jackson) manages to mine genuine scares and dread from an admittedly goofy but simple premise: a burial ground outside of a small-town pet cemetery has the power to resurrect whatever—or whoever—is buried in it, but like in all good versions of “The Monkey’s Paw,” there’s a catch. Lambert shows particular skill at incarnating King’s creepiest characters in the flesh: the late great Fred Gwynne’s take on “Jud Crandall”, the nightmare-inducing invalid shut-in “Zelda” (in a daring cross-gender casting coup, played by Andrew Hubatsek), and the skin-crawling presence of murderous baby revenant “Gage Creed.” Plus, you’ll be tapping your toes to the raging Ramones theme song that closes the end credits.

Enter the weird, grimy world of Roberta Findlay, legendary porn pioneer, exploitation maven, and 42nd St goddess. She’s a one woman wonder, grinding out sleazy classics like Snuff and sex obsessed nightmares with titles like Liquid A$$ets. She photographed, edited, and directed The Oracle, a creepy, soft-focus tale of spiritual possession across the sweat-stained streets of vintage NYC. While a mysterious killer lurks in the shadows, an unearthly force communicates with the beautiful new occupant of a cursed apartment, pushing our heroine towards House of Psychotic Women hysteria, while highlighting her on-point wardrobe (maroon overalls, puffy sleeves, chokers). Filled with dime store drama, one-take magic, ineffectual men and Argento-styled lighting, The Oracle showcases Findlay’s unique brand of somnambulant anti-cinema. Oh, and did we mention this is a Christmas-themed film complete with lo-fi synthesizer carols?

HEAVY MIDNITES: After Hours (30th Anniversary!)

9/26/2015 - MIDNITE

Martin Scorsese’s coke-fueled black comedy fever dream rides high on manic energy like a laser blast, a thrilling masterclass in cinematic propulsion, a completely out-there exercise in style, birthed through his frantic frustration over the initial collapse of his adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ. After Hours is one of Scorsese’s best films, one of the all-time great “all night” movies, and a wild exploration of New York that will leave you breathless. Griffin Dunne leads an all-star cast (Rosanna Arquette, Teri Garr, John Heard, Catherine O’Hara, Cheech & Chong and more!) through a seemingly endless and Kafkaesque trip through the city, a bizarre nightmare that ratchets up the agitation, excitement, lunacy and laughter to surreal levels as it bounces from one screwball idea to another, somehow tying in plaster of Paris bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweights, burglary, an ice cream truck and even a crude drawing of a shark biting off a man’s erect penis. It’s that frickin’ good!

Prints Courtesy Of Harry Novak/Box Office International and Severin Films.

One of the most famed mysteries from the exploitation underworld exposed! Before disappearing from the film world for nearly 30 years, writer/director Frederick R. Friedel crafted two low budget hits that rocked the drive-in circuit. And in one of those HOLYFUCKINGSHIT / ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME opportunities, the outsider auteur is flying in to screen his movies in 35mm plus discuss the insane stories behind his enigmatic career. Trust us, this will be a night to dismember.

AXE

Razors! Rape! REVENGE! Perfectly balanced in the Cinefamily sweet spot between arthouse and grindhouse, Axe is a perverse blast of chintzy, art-horror realism that no one eulogizes, but everyone should. In other words, it’s one of the best kept secrets in vintage exploitation. Lisa and her paralyzed grandfather live in a desolate Gothic home. A few rapist-killers stop by for a visit. Guns are waved. Demands are made. Everyone acts like a stoned extraterrestrial. Then, Lisa grabs her AXE! Towing a fine line between affecting techniques and disorientating mood, Axe is an amalgam of gritty, exploitive joy. It’s like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining was relocated to the town from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then given a makeover by Jean Rollin. With lots of synths. Crafted with confidence by director Frederick Friedel and produced by sleaze kingpin Harry Novak, Axe is one of the most notable and unique obscurities in the wild ‘n wooly Video Nasty canon.

Dir. Frederick R. Friedel, 1977, 35mm, 72 min.

KIDNAPPED CO-ED

Decades ago an unforgettable film came not from Hollywood, but from the Carolinas — one in which star-crossed lovers are sullied by sexual sadism, in which hayseed sincerity is tarnished by pitch black humor, and Rockwellian idylls are rife with grisly crime. No, not Blue Velvet; ten years before Lynch patented his blend of naive noir, Frederick Friedel birthed Kidnapped Co-Ed. Jack Canon (a perfect Clint Eastwood/Harry Dean Stanton hybrid) hijacks heiress Leslie Ann Rivers for her daddy’s money, but a disturbing detour leads the unlikely couple deep into the heart of darkest America, where unspeakable thrills await. Friedel’s Stockholm Syndrome fairytale is incandescent with unthinkable images, uproariously (and intentionally) funny dialogue, heartbreaking romance and irresolvable mystery; that it doesn’t enjoy Twin Peaks-level fame is a crime worse than kidnapping.

Dir. Frederick Friedel, 1976, 35mm, 76 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Twelve Monkeys

9/12/2015 - MIDNITE

Settle in for a sci-fi scorcher, a meticulously-constructed, labyrinthine mind-shocker so hot it’ll flip your top and have you questioning your own reality. A vision launched from the genius of Brazil director Terry Gilliam, Twelve Monkeys is inspired chaos, a poetic hallucination of a dark future (and past) that’s a potent mix of time travel adventure and lunatic fantasy that works both as a manic fever dream and a thrilling whodunit. When Bruce Willis is sent back in time to investigate a deadly plague, he’s catapulted too far and hospitalized as insane. You know what they say, science isn’t an exact science. Featuring an intense and convincingly grungy Willis, a mile-a-minute, deliriously hyper and hypnotically wall-eyed Brad Pitt plus Madeleine Stowe as a psychiatrist / audience surrogate trying to piece it all together. Add Gilliam’s precisely designed landscape that packs more visual information into a single frame than most films attempt in their entire runtime, ambitiously wild ideas that demand multiple viewings and the spirit of Chris Marker’s La Jetée, and you’ve got yourself an absolute stunner.

Dir. Terry Gilliam, 1995, 35mm, 129 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Over The Edge (Rare 35mm print!)

8/22/2015 - MIDNITE

They were old enough to know better but too young to care. Over the Edge is a teen rebellion ripper, a must-see coming-of-age masterpiece that rages with pure passion and inevitable doom, perfectly capturing the youthful mix of alienation, anarchy and boredom of the teenage wasteland generation And it feels totally fucking authentic: featuring real kids (including a 14 year old Matt Dillon) giving naturalistic performances, documentary-like cinematography (by future Under Siege director Andrew Davis!) revealing the scorched suburban experience, a true-to-life Charles S. Haas (Gremlins 2) / Tim Hunter (River’s Edge) script and a rockin’ soundtrack that absolutely nails the era. Kurt Cobain once said the “movie pretty much defined my whole personality” and we couldn’t agree more. This is one of the great ones and a film nearly impossible to see in 35mm.

Dir. Jonathan Kaplan, 1979, 35mm, 95 min.

Print courtesy of the Tim Hunter Collection at the Academy Film Archive

HEAVY MIDNITES: Psycho Beach Party (w/ Dir. Bob King in person!)

8/8/2015 - MIDNITE

The cat’s out of the bag; we’re celebrating the 15th anniversary of the outrageously surfadellic late-night-HBO-mainstay with director Robert Lee King in person to discuss! Based on Charles Busch’s hilarious long-running stage play, Psycho Beach Party is a wickedly funny genre mashup, turning high camp into high art with a double entendre-loaded pop culture stew of Frankie & Annette beach antics, Douglas Sirk melodrama and ‘80s slasher carnage. Chicklet (Can’t Hardly Wait’s Lauren Ambrose), a wannabe surf-girl with a split personality, becomes the primary suspect after a string of humorously gruesome Malibu murders terrifies the teen set. When the clues take her seaside, the fun and suspense really begin. Featuring a young, bikini-clad Amy Adams, Dharma & Greg’s Thomas Gibson as a burnt-out guru, Buffy’s Nicholas Brendon as a sexy surfboy and playwright/drag legend Busch in a juicy role as the fabulously stylish homicide detective. Catch it on the big screen in 35mm before grabbing the brand new blu-ray edition from Strand Releasing on August 18!

Dir. Robert Lee King, 2000, 35mm, 95 min.

Watch the trailer!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Wet Hot American Summer

8/1/2015 - MIDNITE

Feather your hair and grab your short shorts; we’re headed back to Camp Firewood with the endlessly quotable, obsessively rewatchable cult comedy that still has us giggling with glee and celebrating high times, hard bodies and soft rock. A pitch-perfect spoof and loving tribute to the classic teen sex romps of the ‘80s, Wet Hot American Summer gloriously captures the hormone-soaked hilarity of youth while totally nailing the period details of our nation’s last great era. Bursting from the inventive minds of David Wain and Michael Showalter (both from MTV’s The State), the film features a lightning-in-a-bottle ensemble cast of up-and-comers including Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper and many more (including Heavy Midnites hero Janeane Garofalo!), leaving an indelible mark on a generation of emerging comedians. So revisit the French kissing, sweater-fondling, level-5-charm-spell spectacular before hitting your bunk with the new Netflix show Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp!

Dir. David Wain, 2001, 35mm, 97 min.

Watch the trailer!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (25th Anniversary!)

7/25/2015 - MIDNITE

Watch out: we’ve got the most hellzapoppin’, gonzorific, take-no-prisoners gizmopalooza ever unleashed! A sequel so insanely over the top that it serves as the ultimate mic drop for our favorite two film franchise. Yep, Joe Dante’s little monster masterpiece is turning 25 and we’ve got the 35mm print to prove it! Gremlins 2 multiplies the madness, moving the mayhem to the big city as the mischievous munchies overrun a state-of-the-art new building. Featuring Christopher Lee as Doctor Catheter, Jon Glover as a Ted Turner-like media mogul, a scene-stealing Dick Miller and gloriously outlandish practical effects designed by the great Rick Baker, The New Batch is pure anarchic energy exploding on screen and one of the most unconventional studio pictures ever.

Dump those tapes and delete those rips, after a 10 year search we’ve finally uncovered a 35mm print of one of the most indelible (yet rarely seen) cult mindflayers of the ‘90s. An American Gothic shot in Canada from English multimedia artist Philip Ridley, The Reflecting Skin is a strong, strange directorial debut, a visual mood poem packed with surreal beauty, dreamlike atmosphere and unforgettable cinematography by Dick Pope. It’s a world of exploding frogs, might-be-vampires and golden fields of wheat; a disturbing, Lynchian exploration of the horrors of childhood and the loss of innocence through a tale of death, dread and decay in a small prairie town. Plus, it’s got a nude Viggo Mortensen. Don’t miss what may truly be a once-in-a-lifetime screening of this haunting and intoxicating arthouse masterpiece. Prepare to have your soul scorched and your eyes fried.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Times Square (35th Anniversary!)

6/27/2015 - MIDNITE

The defining youth street epic of the colliding ‘70s/‘80s, featuring music by Gary Numan, Roxy Music, The Ruts, Patti Smith, Ramones, Talking Heads and more! Two teenage New York City girls – one a politician’s daughter, the other a street urchin – run away from a mental ward together and forge a relationship on the sketchy streets of “the Deuce”. They soon link up with DJ Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry) and form an underground punk rock band, which becomes a hit with the city’s disillusioned youth after their volatile songs are played on LaGuardia’s show. But will the girls’ reckless youth be their own undoing? One of the first teen movies to feature predominantly punk and new wave music, Times Square was helmed by Allan Moyle, who later went onto craft other fun films with wall-to-wall great soundtracks like Pump Up The Volume and Empire Records. Skillfully, capturing the distinct essence of post-’70s New York, Times Square wonderfully immortalizes the famous district of decay that has since been transformed into the characterless mega-mall we now know today.

The rules are simple: kill or be killed. When a group of high-powered hunters turn their guide (motherf’in ICE-T) into their prey, the ultimate manhunt is on and all bets are off. But these aren’t your normal wealthy wackjobs, these are played by a veritable who’s who of rad dudes: Rutger Hauer in a goatee and bandana, the sweet Charles S. Dutton playing against type, the always-reliable John C. McGinley, Amadeus’ Oscar-winning F. Murray Abraham and a wild-eyed Gary Busey out Gary Busey’ing himself as a psychotic psychiatrist whose backstory will leave your jaw on the floor. Seriously, you’ve never seen a crew like this on screen before. And now the video store favorite & late night cable classic Surviving the Game is gonna be a once-in-a-lifetime midnight movie explosion with the filmmaker behind it all IN PERSON to discuss! Legendary cinematographer-turned-director Ernest Dickerson, the man who lensed some of the most iconic films of the ‘80s (Krush Groove, Do the Right Thing), helmed perhaps the most entertaining horror flick of the ‘90s (Demon Knight) and is responsible for most of the best episodes of the best shows of this century (The Wire, The Walking Dead) will join us to talk about his amazing career and how he was able to wrangle one of the wildest casts in the history of action cinema!

Dir. Ernest Dickerson, 1994, 35mm, 96 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

5/16/2015 - MIDNITE

“Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is, beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film that will be made in the future.” – John Waters

Ladies and gentlemen – welcome to violence! Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the greatest girl-power grindhouse explosion to ever ignite the screen as well as pay tribute to the legendary sexploitation maestro and breastman extraordinaire behind it all, the King of the Nudies himself, Russ Meyer! Go-Go for a wild ride with three buxom, larger-than-life superwomen, Tura Satana, Haji & Lori Williams, as they Watusi across the Mojave Desert destroying every man who dares stand in their way. These outlaw hellcats drive fast, kick ass and look great while pushing the boundaries of being bad. Full of pop imagery, exuberant action and kinetic excitement, FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL! KILL! is one of the most iconic cult films EVER! Don’t miss it!

“How much farting, pooping, peeing, and puking can you put in a single movie?”
– IMDb user review

Back in 1990, Problem Child tormented critics, terrified parents and pushed the limits of decency to delight kids of all ages — not to mention its spawning protests, sequels, an animated series and countless schoolyard shenanigans while leaving a powerful impact on a generation of young movie maniacs. To celebrate its 25th anniversary we’ve packed more mischievous mayhem into a single night than should be legally allowed, all to create the most epic event in Heavy Midnites history. We’re breaking out the big guns: two gorgeous, rarely-screened archival film prints, plus the special guests to tell us what really happened. Writers/creators Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, actress Amy Yasbeck, actor Eric Edwards and Problem Child 2 director Brian Levant IN PERSON to discuss!

PROBLEM CHILD
Before becoming Hollywood’s go-to guys for offbeat biopics, (Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man In The Moon) writers Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander launched their careers with a deliciously deranged tale of a red-haired tyke’s wild exploits and the full-scale comic nightmares that follow him. Larry and Scott’s skilled touch shows, elevating a simple premise to unforeseen heights of blackly comic absurdity. When obnoxious seven-year-old monster Junior is adopted by Ben & Flo (the lovable John Ritter and his soon to be real-life wife Amy Yasbeck), all hell breaks loose as the blue-eyed cutie terrorizes all that cross his path. No cat, campout, birthday or ball game is safe from this Satanic hellspawn. Co-starring franchise MVPs Jack Warden and Gilbert Gottfried, plus Seinfeld’s Michael Richards as an escaped serial killer convict known as The Bow Tie Killer!
Dir. Dennis Dugan, 1990, 35mm, 81 min.

PROBLEM CHILD 2
Here it is, the legendarily not-safe-for-parents, PG-13 Problem Child follow-up that goes waaaay beyond bad taste to become one of the most hilariously inappropriate comedies ever unleashed. Doubling down on the wild antics of the first, Junior meets his match in pint-sized psychopath Trixie. He’s bad but she’s worse, and the tiny terrors will stop at nothing to get their single parents together. It’s the closest and grossest we may ever get to a John Waters-inspired family film, and it’s what the Orlando Sentinel called “the most sheerly repulsive kiddie movie ever filmed.” We love it.
Dir. Brian Levant, 1991, 35mm, 90 min. (Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

Watch the trailer for “Problem Child”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Shogun Assassin

To celebrate Light in the Attic’s brand-new Record Store Day release of the classic Shogun Assassin soundtrack, we’re unleashing the most brutally badass Japanese hero to ever paint the screen red. Seized by the police during the U.K.’s notorious “Video Nasty” scare, the film remains one of the most deliriously entertaining and action-packed exploitation flicks of all time, slicing through pop culture and influencing everything from GZA’s Liquid Swords album to Big Trouble in Little China and Kill Bill. This ballet of bloodied bodies and slashed limbs is the Americanized condensation of the legendary Lone Wolf and Cub series, and it distills all the anger, energy and violence of the world’s most famous samurai into a frenzied grindhouse melee with English dubbing (featuring Sandra Bernhard!) and an added heavy synthesizer score by Paul Revere and the Raiders singer Mark Lindsay. Tomisaburô Wakayama (Zatoichi, The Bad News Bears Go to Japan) stars as Ogami Ittō, traveling the countryside with his young son and a deadly, tricked-out cart on a blood-thirsty mission of vengeance against the Shogun that murdered his wife. Essential viewing.
Dirs. Robert Houston & David Weisman, 1980, 35mm, 85 min.

The next great Neon No-Wave rediscovery is here, and it f’ing shreds! Shredder Orpheus is a skatepunk nightmare dialed to eleven, a heroic cult vision of hallucinatory ambition — along with a heavy dose of forbidden-zone poetry, courtesy of the late, great Steven Jesse Bernstein: the Bukowski of the ‘80s Pacific Northwest. When the Devil’s “Euthanasia Broadcast Network” unleashes an evil television signal that corrupts and kills its viewers, only rock star Orpheus (writer/director Robert McGinley) and his band of Shredders can penetrate the underworld and free the airwaves. Armed with his trusty tricked-out deck and a futuristic Hendrix-designed guitar, our hero must battle legions of gothed-out, post-apocalyptic zonkers to get to the truth. Don’t miss your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this unique blend of sick skateboarding, sci-fi social commentary, slashin’ songs, spaced-out comedy and ultra-wild décor — with the filmmaker behind it all IN PERSON to discuss!
Dir. Robert McGinley, 1989, 35mm, 88 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Stone Cold

4/4/2015 - MIDNITE

Even in our era of exuberant cinematic excess, few films can match the outrageous action, insane style, awesome haircuts and balls-to-the-wall entertainment of Stone Cold. It’s an unstoppable celebration of slick one-liners, fiery explosions, over-the-top set pieces, vicious baddies (including legends Lance Henriksen & William Forsythe), leather vests & hairy chests, plus one totally scene-stealing komodo dragon. College football superstar/NFL lightning rod/(unfairly) Razzie-nominated Brian Bosworth makes his film debut as a cop who enforces his own brand of justice while forced to go undercover to infiltrate a dangerous biker gang so bad their leader’s name is Chains. After a decade-long search, we’ve finally unearthed what may be the Earth’s last-surviving print of this modern day masterpiece of manliness. Prepare for 92 minutes of pure adrenaline and the most explosive courtroom climax ever committed to 35mm; Holyfuckingshit alert!!
Dir. Craig R. Baxley, 1991, 35mm, 92 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Everly (director Joe Lynch in person!)

3/28/2015 - MIDNITE

Director Joe Lynch & DP Steve Gainer in person! It’s still only March, but we’ve already got a clear contender for the most outrageous action brain smash of the year! Perfectly birthed as a future cult classic, Everly is a high-body-count, “hard-R” showcase in what can be done with a low budget but with a lot of ingenuity, blood and bullets. Salma Hayek(!) takes no prisoners as a femme fatale unleashing the ultimate vengeance against a sadistic mob boss and his army of assassins. Battling through a brutal barrage of machine-gunning maniacs, killer dogs, knife-wielding killers, prostitutes, cruel torturers and more, the movie rockets along as the spiritual embodiment of Takashi Miike working for Cannon Films on the set of The Raid. As you might have guessed, it’s freakin’ awesome. Director (and proud Cinefamily member) Joe Lynch joins us to discuss the makings of his new late-night fan favorite.
Dir. Joe Lynch, 2014, DCP, 92 min.

Watch the trailer for “Everly”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Welcome To The Dollhouse

3/21/2015 - MIDNITE

Todd Solondz’s Sundance-winning black comedy breakthrough is painfully true-to-life adolescent annihilation, a cringe-worthy reminder that school is hell and that kids are the worst. Bitingly funny, sharply detailed and endlessly awkward, Welcome to the Dollhouse follows 11-year-old Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo in a career-making performance), a junior high geek who just wants to be popular. Teased by her classmates and tormented by the local bully, Dawn uncomfortably navigates lunch room terrors and family traumas while falling for the hunky star of the neighborhood garage band. And hers is the kind of role you rarely see onscreen: brutally relatable and completely unforgiving. It’s no wonder the Wienerdog remains an outcast hero and style icon for our generation of misfits. Dollhouse is one of the defining indie moments of the ‘90s, perfectly capturing pre-teen agony while still being intensely entertaining and eminently quotable. You won’t be able to look away.
Dir. Todd Solondz, 1996, 35mm, 88 min.

Watch the trailer for “Welcome to the Dollhouse”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: The Island of Dr. Moreau

3/14/2015 - MIDNITE

Moreau FX artist Bruce Fuller in person! The ill-fated making of the notorious ‘96 H.G. Wells adaptation is the stuff of heavy-duty Hollywood legend. Seriously, the new doc Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau” is a must-watch: an auteur’s years-long struggle to bring a groundbreaking new vision to screen, sidelined by ballooning costs, studio suits, huge egos, bad weather and total jungle madness. The fact that it was completed at all is a miracle — that it turned out so absolutely insane, and was actually released to an unsuspecting public is a godsend to fans of weird cinema. This final product is an f’ing wild ride of outrageous acting, indulgent excess and questionable decisions, all headlined by a lazy, get-me-off-this-set Val Kilmer, and a scene-devouring Marlon Brando truly stealing the show as the ice-bucket-hat Moreau, a gauze-clad god figure to his island of freaks. Throw in excellent Stan Winston creature effects, a feline Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman as the Sayer of the Law and Nelson de la Rosa — a 28-inch, 22-pound actor forced to hold his own against the rotund Brando — and you’ve got one for the ages.
Dir. John Frankenheimer, 1996, 35mm, 96 min.

Watch the trailer for “The Island of Dr. Moreau”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Spice World

2/28/2015 - MIDNITE

Climb aboard the double decker Spice Bus and get ready for a madcap musical adventure packed with GIRL POWER! Victoria, Emma, Mel B, Geri and Mel C are dressed to kill, and thoroughly prepared to spice up your lives with the group’s fabulous feature film debut (and, sadly, finale.) Sassy, saucy and non-stop fun, Spice World finds our Spice Girls doing a modern day media-obsessed update of The Monkees’ Head, crossed with the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the girls engage in escalating English escapades (haunted mansions, extraterrestrial encounters and even more surreal excitement) as they gear up for the biggest performance of their lives at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Bursting with feverish propulsion, a you-just-gotta-join-in soundtrack of mega-hits & mega-moves, plus a supporting cast of top-tier character actors (Alan Cumming, Richard E. Grant, Barry Humphries) and wild cameo appearances, Spice World will have you never giving up on the good times.
Dir. Bob Spiers, 1997, 35mm, 93 min.

Watch the trailer for “Spice World”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: E.T.

2/21/2015 - MIDNITE

Drop those walkie-talkies and CGI “enhancements”: it’s a rare 35mm print containing the original 1982 theatrical version of our childhood favorite, so you can relive the epic adventure and endearing magic of one of the most beloved cinematic experiences of all time! Steven Spielberg’s heartwarming Kid Power classic paints the screen with unparalleled imagination and overflows with memorable performances, iconic Carlo Rambaldi effects and a stirring John Williams score to tell the timeless tale of love between a young boy and a visitor from another planet. It’s a stone cold masterpiece, and a cultural touchstone that genuinely lives up to its legendary reputation.
Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1982, 35mm, 115 min.

Watch the trailer for “E.T.”!

Watch Henry Thomas’ original audition tape for “E.T.”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: The Bodyguard

2/14/2015 - MIDNITE

Whitney, we’ll always love you. And never more than in your fabulous film diva debut: an outrageously over-the-top, gleefully ridiculous star vehicle stuffed with romance, thrills, laughter and music. It’s a four-quadrant milestone geared to set your heart aflutter and have you singing along with the best-selling soundtrack of all time! Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston propel this narratively old-fashioned, yet deliriously-of-the-‘90s date night blockbuster about an ex-Secret Service agent-turned-pro-bodyguard tasked with protecting a superstar at her peak. Passion, peril and camp melodrama all tumble-dry together as The Bodyguard shamelessly manipulates our starving emotions. Who wouldn’t love a rollercoaster of outrageous acting and euphoric excitement, as mega-hits “I Will Always Love You”, “I’m Every Woman” and even the Oscar-nominated(!!) “Run to You” and “I Have Nothing” swoon through the speakers?
Dir. Mick Jackson, 1992, 35mm, 130 min.

Watch the trailer for “The Bodyguard”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Lost Highway

1/31/2015 - MIDNITE

Haunting sexuality, ricochet action and fleeting, murderous shadows await you on a psyche-shattering journey that begins and ends on the Lost Highway. Prepare for a cinematic nightmare of desire, destiny and unknown destination, where the truth is always just a short way further down the road. Featuring a descent-into-hell soundtrack and an incredible cast including Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake and Robert Loggia, Lost Highway is a powerful, mesmerizing potion of dream illusion, pulsing anxiety and noir decay. It’s David Lynch at his absolute freakiest and we freakin’ love it.
Dir. David Lynch, 1997, 35mm, 134 min.

Watch the trailer for “Lost Highway”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Just One of the Guys (30th Anniversary, plus cast reunion!)

1/24/2015 - 10:30PM

NOTE: this show will place at 10:30pm, rather than midnight. Director Lisa Gottlieb, plus stars Joyce Hyser, Ayre Gross, Clayton Rohner, Toni Hudson, John Apicella, Deborah Goodrich and Billy Jacoby in person.

A video store ‘n HBO memory from the days when a youth-oriented comedy could show a bunch of nudity and be rated PG-13, this ‘80s staple provides screwball laughs while also having pointed commentary about sexual discrimination, queer politics and shoving socks down your shorts. She’s 18 — she’s smart, good looking and has it all. And now Terri Griffith (Joyce Hyser) is about to set off an epidemic of comic hysteria when she enrolls in a new school as Just One of the Guys. It’s a reverse teen Tootsie at Hormone High, as we sneak a peek into the locker room and behind bedroom doors to discover what dudes are really talking about. Cue the fashion montage, madcap antics and gender-bending hijinks as Terri goes where no girl has gone before. With Billy Jacoby as the sex-obsessed loudmouth little brother, Toni Hudson as the best friend, Clayton Rohner as Terri’s pet project turned love interest, William “Karate Kid” Zabka as the class bully and Twin Peaks’ Sherilyn Fenn as the foxiest babe in town!
Dir. Lisa Gottlieb, 1985, 35mm, 90 min.

Watch an excerpt from “Just One of the Guys”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: River's Edge

1/10/2015 - MIDNITE

We’ll be giving away a few copies of the brand-new River’s Edge Blu-Ray at the show, courtesy of our friends at Kino Classics!

Charged with electric performances, haunting atmosphere, pitch black humor and a raging thrash soundtrack, River’s Edge perfectly represents an entire post-punk generation of disaffected youth. And while this controversial cult-classic lightning bolt may be based on a true life story, it hails from the same skewed, dark-bellied other-verse as Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Winner of the 1987 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature and Best Screenplay, it tracks a group of alienated high school burnouts and their reactions to discovering a friend has killed his girlfriend — but that’s just the starting point for a truly off-center character study populated by some of the Eighties’ greatest characters: a completely over-the-edge Crispin Glover and a blowup-doll-loving, drug-damaged dealer unforgettably played by Dennis Hopper. Plus, see Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck and Joshua John Miller (that spooky kid from Near Dark & Teen Witch) in “the best and boldest American movie so far this year!” (People Magazine).
Dir. Tim Hunter, 1986, 35mm, 99 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Mad Max

1/3/2015 - MIDNITE

We’re shifting into overdrive and exploding 2015 with the Aussie original that rocketed Mel Gibson to international superstardom, and showcased filmmaker George Miller as one of the most exciting cinematic voices to ever hail from Down Under. In the ravaged near-future, vicious bands of marauding maniacs rule the road, terrorize civilians and laugh in the face of a police force powerless to stop them. But they’ve underestimated a certain Officer Max Rockatansky, and when they brutalize his friends and family, they send Max into a mad frenzy leaving him with only one thing left to live for — REVENGE. Peerless stuntwork and stunning vehicular photography keep the pedal to the metal, propelling our iconic anti-hero and his badass car to all-time cult classic status!
Dir. George Miller, 1979, 35mm, 88 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Home Alone

12/20/2014 - MIDNITE

How did a story about child neglect, bloody vigilante combat, breaking and entering, a scary old man, tarantulas, and face-searing electric-iron catapults (among other atrocities) become a heartwarming, seasonal family blockbuster? Simple: it sprung from director Chris Columbus (in his golden post-Adventures in Babysitting, pre-Bicentennial Man moment) and writer John Hughes (in his golden post-Ferris Beuller, pre-Beethoven, Beethoven’s 2nd, Beethoven’s 3rd, Beethoven’s 4th moment). Those who saw this film when it came out in 1990 — uh, this means you, for we all saw it — will remember that it’s actually funny, lively, and excellently cast (remember the part with John Candy? No? It’s great!) Scrappy little nudnik Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin, in his golden post-Uncle Buck, pre-pubescent moment) raised the bar for precocious urchins everywhere, while seminal character actors Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern co-star as the Keystone Kops of ill-advised burglary. Also, there’s some stuff about Christmas.
Dir. Chris Columbus, 1990, 35mm, 103 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (25th Anniversary!)

We’re breaking out the big fun for an oversized adventure so entertaining it spawned multiple sequels, an amusement park attraction and countless childhood escapades. It’s wild, it’s wacky and it’s packed with personality as Rick Moranis invents a shrink ray that puts his family, the neighbors and the very foundation of science in pint-sized peril. Now the ¼-inch kids must make their way through a backyard jungle, facing hurricane sprinklers, dive-bombing bees, a runaway lawnmower and enough Disney-fied danger to thrill tots, teens and adults alike — and that’s all before we even get to the larger-than-life Cheerios! Honey, I Shrunk The Kids is family-friendly box-office magic full of truly spectacular visuals, hilarious comedy and non-stop action directed by Oscar-winning SFX master Joe Johnston (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back) from a story by Cinefamily friends (and Re-Animator creators) Stuart Gordon & Brian Yuzna. Top it with a classic James Horner score, and you have a perfect movie-night-out for the kid in all of us. Co-writer Brian Yuzna in person!
Dir. Joe Johnston, 1989, 35mm, 93 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Grindhouse Trailer Apocalypse

11/29/2014 - MIDNITE

When Oscar-winning editor Bob Murawski and his team at Grindhouse Releasing (the fine folks behind big-screen reissues of The Beyond, Cannibal Holocaust, Pieces and more) ask if you want to see a custom-curated, all-35mm collection of the rarest vintage trailers on planet Earth, you say YES. Prepare for a feature-length onslaught of the wildest, weirdest and most action-packed face-rippers to have ever (dis)graced drive-in screens — all culled from GR’s vast archive of golden-age exploitation. Blaxploitation, sexploitation, horror, mondo, martial arts and more mix with mutant subgenres, freakish fiascos and other brain-bludgeoning, eye-blasting two-minute masterpieces not seen since the flea-ridden heydays of 42nd St.

“You’re not an astrologer…YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!” — Arthyr Chadbourne, in The Astrologer

Our compatriots at Austin, TX’s American Genre Film Archive bring us a lost masterwork of such feverish potency that it immediately evokes memories of Top 10 Cinefamily Bizarro Moments Of All-Time like Dangerous Men, Lost In The Desert and After Last Season. The brainchild of writer/director/star/supposed celebrity astrologer Craig Denney, 1975’s The Astrologer is a self-aggrandizing yet completely dislocating auto-biopic journey into “What makes a world-famous zodiac peddler tick?” Natch, it involves humble beginnings as a carnival huckster, diamond smuggling, African jail, Indiana Jones-level daring-do, carousing in Valley dive bars with haggard-as-hell barflies, an avant-garde film-within-the-film (titled The Astrologer), slo-mo food fights and more Moody Blues than you can handle. No situation is too nutz for Denney to flash his irascible smirk at — and no single scene will ever prepare you for what the next will be. A shattering missive from the outermost limits of cinematic sanity — and the most delirious film find of 2014, discovered amongst the impossible hodgepodge of over one thousand donated 35mm prints from a single humungous batch. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Co-star Arthyr Chadbourne in person for a Q&A. THANK GOD — we have so many questions about this film!!!
Dir. Craig Denney, 1975, 35mm, 77 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Mulholland Dr.

11/1/2014 - MIDNITE

“One night, I sat down, the ideas came in, and it was a most beautiful experience.” – David Lynch, 2001

“The best film of the decade” – Los Angeles Film Critics Society

David Lynch’s auteurist fantasia is dense, hypnotic, intoxicating and absolutely impossible to forget. What better anniversary of its to celebrate, other than its lucky 13th? There’s never been a better time to surrender yourself to this modern masterpiece of fragmented beauty and enigmatic, mind-shredding power. Lynch creates a visionary Los Angeles nightmare, a stunningly photographed neo-noir of danger, dread, deep mystery, dark humor and Sapphic desire, dismantling the Hollywood dream like pieces in a subconscious puzzle. Riveting performances from Naomi Watts and Laura Harring anchor a narrative that swallows itself whole, while a gorgeous Angelo Badalamenti score and impressive supporting cast of up-and-comers (Justin Theroux), cinematic legends (Ann Miller, Lee Grant) and genre film favorites (Robert Forster, James Karen) keep us consistently spellbound. It’s perfectly uncompromising, and all the more compelling for it.
Dir. David Lynch, 2001, 35mm, 147 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES' "THE WITCHING HOUR": Teen Witch

10/25/2014 - MIDNITE

Being a teen girl is hard. You’ve got to deal with boys, boobs, bratty brothers and Brad, the hunky football star who doesn’t even know you’re alive. Uggghhh! But when you find out on your 16th birthday that you’re descended from Salem witches, life is, like, totally going to get complicated. Sure, Teen Witch is a sweet-natured coming-of-age fairy tale — but it’s also a top-tier rager: a mind-blowing non-stop fun machine dealing with the tough topics of today (rap battles, magical ability), a cotton-candy comedy packed with teased-out neon fashion, and a you’ll-never-get-it-out-of-your-head soundtrack of original songs (seriously, you’re gonna have to dig deep to Top That.) Plus, the cast’s got supernatural appeal: the sexy duo of Robyn Lively and Dan Gauthier, Near Dark’s Joshua John Miller and Poltergeist’s Zelda Rubinstein, just to get started. Grab your wand and head to Cinefamily to fall under the Teen Witch spell all over again!
Dir. Dorian Walker, 1989, 35mm, 90 min.

Watch the trailer for “Teen Witch”!

Watch the “Top That” rap from “Teen Witch”!

HEAVY MIDNITES' "THE WITCHING HOUR": Troll

10/18/2014 - MIDNITE

Ten years before J.K. Rowling, Hogwarts and quidditch entered the pop culture lexicon, a very different spellbound boy named Harry Potter faced witches, goblins and other ghoulish delights in the mysterious, magical, mini-obsessed VHS-era brainbomb Troll. When Harry (NeverEnding Story teen heartthrob Noah Hathaway) and his family move into a new apartment complex, something mischievous takes over little sister Wendy. She roars, she bites, tosses people across rooms and even punches dudes in the nuts. And that’s not to mention the mystical fairytale forests that are suddenly popping up everywhere. Packed with wild optical effects, a trunkful of creepy critters from Charles Band’s Empire Pictures warehouse, and an all-star cast from Mars including cult film fave Michael Moriarty, Sonny Bono, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Charlie’s Angels’ Shelley Hack, Troll is a totally awesome good time.
Dir. John Carl Buechler, 1986, 35mm, 82 min.

Watch the trailer for “Troll”!

HEAVY MIDNITES' "THE WITCHING HOUR": The Witches

In what may be the strangest family flick collaboration on record, British auteur Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Bad Timing) teamed in the late-’80s with Jim Henson to adapt a book by Willy Wonka creator Roald Dahl. The result: a eccentric masterwork that’s been both delighting and destroying kids of all ages for more than twenty years — a darkly comedic and, frankly, kinda disturbing fairy tale that Dahl himself declared “utterly appalling; I want it known I wouldn’t allow a child to see it!” It’s pure kindertrauma, as a coven of witches tries to rid Britain of youngsters by turning them into teeny-tiny, fuzzy four-legged mice. And, this fantastical nightmare fuel is centered around a deliriously wicked, over-the-top turn from Angelica Huston and imaginative mouse-a-tronic puppetry from Henson’s creature shop. Fiendishly funny and devilishly magical entertainment perfect for The Witching Hour.
Dir. Nicolas Roeg, 1990, 35mm, 91 min.

Watch the trailer for “The Witches”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Heavy Metal

9/27/2014 - MIDNITE

NOTE: this screening will start at 12:30am.We’re taking you beyond the universe to a future you’ve never seen before, an adults-only midnight movie rite of passage based on the wild ideas and even wilder visuals of the fantastical magazine of the same name. So strap in for an animated anthology that beautifully expands the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy while gratuitously pushing the limits of sex, violence and rock ‘n roll. It’s awesome! From the dystopian NYC of 2031 to the outer limits of space, following warrior maidens, hulking barbarians, glowing orbs and more, Heavy Metal is stoned, funky, funny and far out. There’s a raging soundtrack featuring Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Cheap Trick and other rock gods, pitch-perfect voice acting from SCTV faves John Candy and Eugene Levy, plus tons of cartoon boobs, graphic gore, drugs and profanity. We guarantee Heavy Metal’s louder and nastier than ever; it’s gonna pop your eye sockets, blow your ear drums and boil your mind!
Dir. Gerald Potterton, 1981, 35mm, 86 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Assault With a Deadly Weapon

Calling all Italian genre film fans: Umberto “Cannibal Ferox” Lenzi’s Assault with a Deadly Weapon (aka Rome Armed to the Teeth) may be the nastiest, most furious, fastest moving and supremely satisfying Euro crime lunacy ever unleashed on the public! Maurizio Merli (the spitting image of Franco Nero) is a tough, violent cop who doesn’t mind bending the law while on his one-man mission to clean the streets. He’s primed to explode and has finally met his match: a machine-gun-carrying, hunchbacked psychotic killer terrorizing the city (an amazing, wisecracking Tomas Milian of The Big Gundown.) Trust us, this one play great with a crowd. Featuring a pulse-pounding Franco Micalizzi score, gorgeous Federico Zanni ‘scope cinematography, high-speed car chases and an unforgettable ambulance hijacking, Assault is an ultra-politically-incorrect poliziotteschi masterpiece packed with hard-boiled dialogue and shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude. And it’s somehow still unavailable on DVD here in the USA!
Dir. Umberto Lenzi, 1976, 35mm, 95 min.

Watch the trailer for “Assault With A Deadly Weapon” (under the different English-language title “The Tough Ones”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Future-Kill (a tribute to Marilyn Burns)

9/13/2014 - MIDNITE

An unholy alliance of Warriors-styled action thrills (this time through a post-nuke hellzone) and braindead frat house comedy (complete with a Belushi-esque fat guy), Future-Kill is undeniably weird outsider exploitation. When a group of sex-crazed college boys are challenged to venture into a downtown wasteland, they run head-first into Splatter and his mutant gang of anti-nuke protesters. Needless to say, their fun-filled joyride does not end well. One of the great video store classics, the Austin-lensed, ultra-low-budget Future-Kill reunites Texas Chainaw Massacre stars Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns (RIP), features the first on-screen role for Cinefamily friend John Hawkes, and perhaps is most well-known for its iconic H.R. Giger (RIP again) poster art. It’s also filled to the brim with chaotic grime, gore effects, future fashion, real-life punk rockers, bad dude attitude and a surprisingly poetic anti-violence philosophy. You’ve never seen anything quite like it!
Dir. Ronald W. Moore, 1985, 35mm, 89 min.

Watch the trailer for “Future-Kill”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Centipede Horror

9/6/2014 - MIDNITE

When one of last October’s midnight movie watch-a-thon winners picked the notorious gross-out Centipede Horror, we figured we were finally up to the challenge. And this flick is definitely not child’s play (even for those without chilopodophobia, the fear of centipedes), for it’s both as deliriously over the top as its legacy promises, and the cinematic definition of “not for civilians.” Heck, SFX icon Tom Savini once called this “the sickest film I’ve ever seen.” But viewers with strong stomachs, twisted minds and a love for surreal sights one cannot unsee will find a wonderland of creepy, crawly, multi-legged mini-monsters, black magic sorcery and more weird shit than you ever thought possible. And like most ‘80s Hong Kong fantasy exports, it’s totally wild and completely unpredictable, packed with voodoo priests, flying flaming chicken zombies, wizard battles, bug-puking and other nightmarish visuals. There’s even time for an extended flashback to show just how grandpa got us into this mess in the first place.
Dir. Keith Li, 1982, 35mm, 93 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Jet Li in "Fist of Legend" (20th Anniversary!)

8/23/2014 - MIDNITE

Widely regarded as the greatest film of two legendary careers, Fist of Legend teams international superstar Jet Li with martial arts choreographer Yuen Wo-ping (Drunken Master, Kill Bill 1 & 2, The Matrix trilogy) for some of the most awe-inspiring fight sequences you’ll ever see. In this tribute to Bruce Lee’s classic The Chinese Connection (aka Fist of Fury), Li radiates sheer power and coolness as folk legend Chen Zen: a kung fu phenom living abroad who returns home to avenge the death of his master, and save his martial arts school. Shifting effortlessly among diverse fighting styles, Li battles blindfolded, wields his belt as a lethal weapon and more, as each action set piece raises the bar to unbelievable heights of art, beauty and precision. It’s a deadly ballet of skill, speed and agility; your jaw will hit the floor watching cinema’s pre-eminent kung fu badasses working at the pinnacle of human ability!
Dir. Gordon Chan, 1994, 35mm, 103 min.

Watch the trailer for “Fist of Legend”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: The Baby

8/16/2014 - MIDNITE

Are you ready for one of the most bizarre film freakouts birthed by Seventies Hollywood? ‘Cuz we’ve got a real mother of a jaw-dropping flick that’ll stun even the most jaded midnight maniacs. Get this: Anjanette Comer (The Loved One) stars as an idealistic L.A. County social worker investigating the case of Mrs. Wadsworth (Fifties starlet Ruth Roman, Strangers On A Train), her two buxom daughters, and son “Baby” — a mentally-disabled man who sleeps in a crib, eats in a high-chair, crawls, bawls and wears diapers. But what secrets of unnatural attachment –- and sexual obsession –- are all of these women hiding? The script by Abe Polsky goes out of its way to make this as insane as possible, tossing in incest, cattle prod abuse, drug-fueled parties and even an intense game of darts. It’s hard to imagine a mainstream director tackling such a wild storyline, but it’s real (helmed by Ted Post, Beneath The Planet of the Apes, Hang ‘Em High) and we’ve got an honest-to-goodness 35mm print with all the suburban violence, funky fashions and “sick love” you could ever want.
Dir. Ted Post, 1973, 35mm, 84 min.

Schedule permitting, director Stuart Gordon, co-stars Paul Koslo & Anne Marie Johnson, and SFX expert Paul Gentry in person! Break out the oil cans and oversized wrenches; we’ve got the film that proves once and for all there’s nothing cooler than giant robots beating the crap out of each other. So feast your eyes on the ultimate killing machine: part man, part metal and all awesome. In this brutal post-apocalypse, patriotic heroes must pilot multi-storied, mechanized death-bots to settle disputes as electric gladiators. The most expensive movie ever birthed by Charles Band’s Empire Pictures (the house that gave us Ghoulies, Trancers and other VHS staples), Robot Jox is awash with ambitious stop-motion animation and in-camera effects, impressive miniatures and practical models, a great orchestral score, plus the stylish attitude and directorial flourishes of filmmaker Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Stuck). It’s a rollicking piece of futuristic entertainment, scripted by famed genre author Joe Haldeman as a combination of Saturday morning cartoons and serious science fiction. A perfect late night flick filled with Cold War allusions, Greek mythology and even a gigantic robot chainsaw penis!
Dir. Stuart Gordon, 1989, 35mm, 85 min.

Watch the trailer for “Robot Jox”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Flash Gordon

8/2/2014 - MIDNITE

Prepare to save the universe with the King of the Impossible! Alex Raymond’s timeless comic strip blasts to life in the sci-fi adventure of the ‘80s: a candy-colored cult confection of out-of-this-world SFX, wild costumes and interstellar design — along with legendary rock heroes Queen providing some of the greatest tunes ever committed to celluloid. When our intrepid hero is unwittingly rocketed off Earth towards planet Mongo, he must face cruel ruler Ming the Merciless (an astounding Max Von Sydow, in a role he was born to play), fight a prince, ride a rocket cycle and hang out with bearded Hawkmen to get the girl, redeem himself and rescue mankind. Packed with propulsive energy and spectacular thrills like the best cliffhanger serials, Flash Gordon’s also intentionally campy to the max, with a script by Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (a driving force behind the ‘60s TV Batman) and produced by Dino De Laurentiis as an unforgettable live action comic book filled with colorful characters, memorable dialogue and non-stop entertainment. Plus, a pre-James Bond Timothy Dalton, Fiddler on the Roof’s Topol, Italian beauty Ornella Muti and Playgirl centerfold Sam Jones as Flash!
Dir. Mike Hodges, 1980, 35mm, 111 min.

Watch the trailer for “Flash Gordon”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: My Own Private Idaho (presented by Xiu Xiu)

7/26/2014 - MIDNITE

Xiu Xiu are a longtime favorite band around here, a unique blend of post-punk heartache and experimental ideals — so we’re excited that frontman Jamie Stewart is stopping by in the midst of a national tour, to present a film that’s deeply influenced his life and music. Gus Van Sant’s poetic 1991 road movie is truly affecting, traveling a sad, lonely and visually stunning path that beautifully evokes a state of drifting need and passionate longing. River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star as young hustlers: Mike, a sensitive narcoleptic dreaming of the mother that abandoned him, and Scott, the wayward son of a rich family and the object of Mike’s desire. Navigating a volatile world of junkies, thieves and johns, they take a dreamy quest from the grungy streets to the open highways in search of home. But, don’t fear, it’s not a total downer; Udo Kier even sings and dances with a lamp. A pioneering American work filled with stylized flair, surreal imagery, Shakespeare references and two seriously sexy leads exploring their abilities, My Own Private Idaho helped take New Queer Cinema mainstream, cemented Phoenix’s legacy and still leaves an impact on everyone that watches it.
Dir. Gus Van Sant, 1991, 35mm, 104 min.

Watch the trailer for “My Own Private Idaho”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Body Chemistry

7/19/2014 - MIDNITE

God bless Roger Corman; there was never a good idea that he couldn’t imitate and streamline. With the Hollywood heat of Fatal Attraction burning up the box office in the late ‘80s, Corman’s neo-noir take on steamy sex and kinky thrills resulted in Body Chemistry: a late night Skinemax scorcher, a slick softcore classic to catch on cable when your parents go to sleep, and a rollicking good time. A hulking, often shirtless Marc “The Beastmaster” Singer gets knotty (bondage!) as a doctor researching sexual response who crosses professional barriers when he entangles with a titillating, completely bonkers colleague. But when he tries to break off the tumultuous affair, he ignites a psychological war that will arouse his desires and engulf his family. It’s not a surprise that Body Chemistry was Corman’s most successful theatrical release in more than a decade, for it’s rife with a long list of crackly, outré setpieces, and soapy melodrama for days. A big ‘ol ball of fun that spawned three sequels and lined your old-time local video store with countless imitators, Body Chemistry helped to solidify the blistering genre that boiled billions of hormones in the Clinton Age.
Dir. Kristine Peterson, 1990, 35mm, 84 min.

“A lot of it really made me laugh out loud. I though it was very satirical, very topical. And then of course you get down to the crux, which is “Do you care when the creature’s life is in jeopardy?”, and I DID. When they’re hammering that thing, the bad guys are killing that little robot, I felt bad — and that means the movie works. I’m really surprised by that little Short Circuit 2. That was cute.” — Gene Siskel

Anders Holm (comedian and star of Comedy Central’s Workaholics) stops by the Cinefamily to discuss superior sequels, and the motorized madness of an old-school cable-TV staple! Picking up where its origin film left off but focusing on what worked best, Short Circuit 2 improves on the first in nearly every way, upping the ante in antics and good old fashion robotic FUN. This time Johnny Five’s taking the big city by storm, searching for urban input while crossing wires with punk thugs, jewel thieves and greedy bankers who see his naiveté as their high-tech ticket to easy street. Add in comedy great Michael McKean (This Is Spinal Tap), Modern Girls’ Cynthia Gibb, a returning Fisher Stevens (still doing the Indian thing, but now with a citizenship subplot) and miles of mechanized mayhem for an outrageously alive night at the movies.
Dir. Kenneth Johnson, 1988, 35mm, 110 min.

Come welcome author/longtime Cinefamily friend David J. Moore, as he stops by to celebrate the release of his mammoth new book “World Gone Wild: A Survivor’s Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Movies”. He’s bringing along a doozy of a screening: Patrick Swayze’s sand-swept actioner Steel Dawn. Released while Dirty Dancing was still in theaters and while Thunderdome was still on our minds, this sci-fi update of Shane crawls through the ruins of nuclear war to bring you a dusty landscape of unearthly beauty in a world struggling against both the forces of nature and the evil of mankind. It opens with Swayze standing on his head in the middle of a desert, and only gets weirder from there as he wanders the wasteland slashing through mutants and madmen in order to carve a future with his sword. It’s a sparse, tense affair cemented by committed performances by Swayze and his real-life wife Lisa Niemi, tightly directed by frequent Cannon Films collaborator Lance Hool (Missing in Action 2) and stacked with an army of classic “That Guys”: Anthony Zerbe, Brion James, Arnold Vosloo and American Ninja’s John Fujioka!
Dir. Lance Hool, 1987, 35mm, 100 min.

Has an actor had a better on-screen run at conveying adolescent alienation than Christian Slater? In a three year span, he was front-and-center in the biting satire Heathers, the skate dog classic Gleaming the Cube and the rebellious howl of Pump Up The Volume. That’s one heck of a resume to rack up before your 21st birthday, eh? In Volume he’s perfectly cast as a rebel with a cause, a shy high schooler by day but a cynical, perceptive and totally uncensored pirate radio icon at night, unafraid to tell the hard truth and filling the airwaves with fiercely funny monologues on sex, love and rock ‘n roll. He’s witty and raw — but will his powerful voice inspire unity or tear the community apart? Helming his first feature since the 1980 teen queen punk epic Times Square, writer/director Allan Moyle (Empire Records) again shows his skill with disaffected, music-obsessed youth, carefully shaping urgent true-to-life emotion both timely and timeless. Powered by a seminal alt-rock soundtrack and rarely theatrically screened, Pump Up The Volume demands to be played loud. Filmmaker Allan Moyle in person, plus DJs Carlos & Azul Niño will be here to spin tunes before the show!
Dir. Allan Moyle, 1990, 35mm, 105 min. (Print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive)

Steven Seagal: aikido instructor, environmental activist and movie star. He writes, directs, plays blues guitar, creates energy drinks and is a reserve deputy sheriff. He might be an authority on antique samurai swords, and may have even killed for the CIA. For three decades he’s left an indelible and deeply personal mark on action cinema, igniting screens with his unique blend of machismo and mysticism. And now, those fist-pumping hits are coming to Cinefamily for a take-no-prisoners, one-day-only 35mm blowout!

But that’s not all: we’re flying in cinematic outlaw/bestselling author/legendary film scholar Vern (the man who literally wrote the book on Seagalogy) for his FIRST-EVER public appearance to help better explain the man, the myth and the magic behind your favorite dealer of swift, lethal moves. Plus we’ll have special guests (like regular Seagal film editor Robert Perreti), vintage trailers and more fun ‘n games than should legally be allowed, all to celebrate Heavy Midnites’ 2nd anniversary!

HARD TO KILL
In the pulse-pounding box office hit that debuted his iconic ponytail, Seagal is Mason Storm, an honest cop gunned down and left for dead, but secretly plotting his revenge while in a seven-year coma. Now he must avenge his murdered wife, reconnect with his son and keep his red hot nurse (Kelly LeBrock, the beauty from Weird Science and Seagal’s then-real-life spouse) safe from the corrupt killers biting at their heels. One of Seagal’s most purely enjoyable flicks, Hard to Kill engaged a generation of teenage popcorn munchers, VHS enthusiasts and cable fanatics, cementing Seagal’s screen appeal while furthering his legend. It’s a guaranteed good time, and you can take that to the bank — the blood bank!
Dir. Bruce Malmuth, 1990, 35mm, 96 min.

UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORYScreenwriter Richard Hatem in person. America’s favorite bone-breaking, neck-snapping chef is off the boat, on vacation and taking his maladjusted teen niece (Katherine Heigl…what?!) cross-country by rail. The film’s powerfully concise explanation: “Would you fly if your parents just died in a plane crash?” The secret sleeper in the pantheon of Seagal classics, Under Siege 2 proves the master’s only as good as the villains he’s up against. And our ponytailed hero isn’t just up against your average group of computer hacking hijackers here; Seagal goes fist-to-fist with a wild assortment of disparate character actors: monologist Eric Bogosian(!), Twin Peaks’ Everett McGill, Pulp Fiction’s Peter Greene, Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks, along with other disposable mercenaries and buff badasses. The explosive Casey Ryback saga charges ahead like an unstoppable locomotive of non-stop entertainment!
Dir. Geoff Murphy, 1995, 35mm, 100 min.

OUT FOR JUSTICEEditor Robert A. Ferretti in person. Look, we all know being a cop’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to take out the garbage. In the acknowledged masterpiece of Seagal’s filmography, director John Flynn (Rolling Thunder) and screenwriter David Lee Henry (straight off Road House) perfect the actor’s ‘90s template with elegant simplicity, showcasing the star’s brutal physical ability and strong code of honor. When a police officer is savagely gunned down in front of his family, his partner/best friend Gino (Seagal) goes on the hunt for the psychotic cokehound Richie (William Forsythe, foaming at the mouth and chewing scenery with blithe recklessness.) Seagal gets to speak guido, shoot a guy’s leg completely off with a shotgun, and, most importantly, kick a ton of butt while turning the neighborhood into a war zone, tearing through armies of goons, street urchins and made men while growling bon mots like “I’m gonna cut off his head and piss down his throat.” Skulls will be cracked, bones will be broken and glass will be shattered in this top-tier beat-em-up!
Dir. John Flynn, 1991, 35mm, 91 min. (Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

ON DEADLY GROUNDWe’re flying in a rare U.K. 35mm print just for this one show only of the defining Seagal masterwork! Editor Robert A. Ferretti in person. The capper to our day of Seagal: the most Seagal of them all! Steven’s directorial debut showcases the star’s then-newly-discovered environmentalism, his blossoming interest in Native American culture and the best bar room brawl in all of Seagalogy. Our hero is Forrest Taft, “patron saint of the impossible,” an expert in putting out oil rig fires who must battle an evil corporation to save Alaska and its indigenous people. He wears a fringed jacket, goes on an Inuit vision quest and totally hates pollution. As Vern wrote in his epic tome, “before this movie, he was a popular action star, like so many others. Only now did he become Steven fucking Seagal.” But it’s not just a one man show, for On Deadly Ground features great performances by a truly embarrassed Michael Caine, Joan Chen as an Eskimo love interest, R. Lee Ermey and Billy Bob Thornton as vicious mercenaries and Scrubs star John C. McGinley as a henchman named MacGruder. Vern sums it up eloquently: “you can’t understand Seagal if you haven’t seen On Deadly Ground.”
Dir. Steven Seagal, 1994, 35mm, 101 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Videodrome

6/6/2014 - MIDNITE

In writer/director David Cronenberg’s visionary masterpiece, reality is television, television is reality, Blondie’s Debbie Harry is incendiary and James Woods is freakier than ever. It’s dangerous, exciting and remarkably alive. And more than that, it’s nearly unfathomable that a major Hollywood studio would ever dare release something so heroically audacious. Eternal thanks, Universal — any chance we’ll get a theme park ride? But no joke, Videodrome is essential midnight movie brain fuel: it thrills, titillates and enlightens. Prophetic sci-fi spirituality perfectly melds with the filmmaker’s trademark obsessions, the entire cast is game for outrageous opportunities, and the flick blazes along at a lightning clip. Plus, there’s ultra-gooey Rick Baker effects (a tape-eating abdominal vagina!), a hypnotic Howard Shore synth-and-string score, plenty of kinky sex possibilities, and more than enough provocative ideas/hyper-stimulated video hallucinations to totally scorch your melon. It’s no surprise that Andy Warhol called it a Clockwork Orange for the ‘80s.
Dir. David Cronenberg, 1982, 35mm, 87 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: She's All That (co-star Jodi Lyn O'Keefe in person!)

5/23/2014 - MIDNITE

Whisk off those glasses and snap on some butterfly clips, ‘cause we’re headed back to high school, JNCO-style. When jock charmer Freddie Prinze, Jr. breaks up with his narcissistic girlfriend, he bets his best bud Paul Walker (RIP) that he can turn any girl into the next prom queen. But when he attempts to transform the awkward, cute-as-a-button Rachael Leigh Cook — will he be the one changed? It’s a modern day Pygmalion (or was it My Fair Lady?) cranked to 11 with MTV/Real World jokes, a Fatboy Slim dance number, Hollywood Blvd. performance artists, hott hunks and bikini beach bods in one of the greatest cinematic time capsules of the pre-Y2K era. It’s rollin’ up on fifteen years since the funky-fresh vibe of She’s All That launched not only lexicon bullion like “hoover it”, “major wiggage” and “jump in my ass”, but a cast roster that’ll leave your head spinning: Anna Paquin, Usher, Matthew Lillard, Clea DuVall, Lil’ Kim, Gabrielle Union and The Mighty Ducks’ Elden Henson. Packed from start to finish with a catchy-as-hell soundtrack and an epic teen romance, She’s All That is definitive millennial fun. Schedule permitting, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe in person! Plus, DJ McAllister (KXLU 88.9fm’s “She Rocks”) will be here to spin tunes before the show.
Dir. Robert Iscove, 1999, 35mm, 97 min.

Watch the trailer for “She’s All That”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Death Race 2000

5/9/2014 - MIDNITE

Roger Corman’s depraved drive-in hit is revving its engine, ready to plow through an audience of die-hard midnight maniacs! So get set for the Transcontinental Road Race, a lethal coast-to-coast, no-holds-barred orgy of fast cars and flattened bodies (points are not just scored for speed, but for the number of innocent pedestrians killed) in mankind’s greatest sporting event ever. Drivers David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Roberta Collins, The Karate Kid’s Martin Kove and cult movie icon Mary Woronov are putting the pedal to the metal, on the run to outmaneuver not just one another but also groups of activists willing to do whatever it takes to stop our barbaric heroes. A biting satire on America’s thirst for violence, director Paul “Eating Raoul” Bartel’s update of sci-fi legend Ib Melchior’s story is as pitch black as it is blood red, beautifully shot by Tak Fujimoto (fresh off Malick’s Badlands), fine-tuned to optimum performance by ace editor Tina Hirsch, and gloriously well-deserved of its infamous Ebert zero-star review denouncing the film for being in “poor taste, unnecessarily gratuitous in both nudity and violence.” In our words, a classic.
Dir. Paul Bartel, 1975, 35mm, 80 min.

Watch the trailer for “Death Race 2000″!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Death Promise

4/26/2014 - MIDNITE

Back in the day, 42nd St. grindhouses were filled with grimy exploitation flicks catering to drug-dazed burnouts, damaged Vietnam vets, Black Belt Magazine subscribers and other soldiers of cinematic fortune; Death Promise must’ve played like gangbusters to this panoply of human weirdness with its brutal mix of blaxploitation badassery, chop-socky action and stick-it-to-the-man attitude. In the vicious tenements of back-alley NYC, landlords will raise your rent, cut your power, flood hallways with filthy rats, and even commit murder. But this time, they messed with the wrong renters — and there’s gonna be hell to pay. When a popular, peace-loving senior is killed, his martial-arts-master son (looking like a Puerto Rican Anthony Kiedis) vows bloody revenge. With his perpetually shirtless sidekick, he’ll smash through every door and punch through every hired thug to find the men responsible. Jam-packed with a fist-pumping, brain-smashing energy that will keep you riveted — plus more classic kung-fu sound effects, actors looking into the camera and visible boom mics than you can count, Death Promise SERIOUSLY DELIVERS, along with a funky theme song you’ll never, ever forget. Has this ever screened on 35mm anywhere in the U.S. in the past few decades…?
Dir. Robert Warmflash, 1977, 35mm, 95 min.

Watch the trailer for “Death Promise”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Wild At Heart

4/18/2014 - MIDNITE

This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top. David Lynch’s 1990 Palme d’Or winner/follow-up to Blue Velvet is a psychotronic firestorm of love and passion, fueled by one of the all-time great big-screen romances: the vivid, sexually-charged pairing of Nicolas Cage at his most hyperbolic Cage-iest, and Laura Dern at her most hot-blooded Dernsiest. It’s more than just a movie — Wild at Heart is an essential experience, an exciting hallucinatory nightmare via neo-noir outlaw thriller pathways packed with bizarre details, memorable tangents, Elvis Presley songs, allusions to The Wizard of Oz and a myriad of untamed characters. You’ve got Dern’s real-life mother Diane Ladd going totally bonkers (and garnering an Academy Award nomination), Willem Dafoe as a greasy hitman in dire need of a dentist, Harry Dean Stanton as a private dick, Crispin Glover playing mentally ill, and even more players from Lynch’s stable than you can point out in a single write-up (Isabella Rossellini, Sherilyn Fenn, Jack Nance and Sheryl Lee to start.) Plus it’s funny, iconic, completely unforgettable — and Nicolas Cage looks fucking great in a snakeskin jacket.
Dir. David Lynch, 1990, 35mm, 125 min.

Watch the trailer for “Wild At Heart”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: The Virgin Suicides

4/12/2014 - MIDNITE

Sofia Coppola’s stunningly poetic directorial debut has lost none of its haunting charm or ethereal allure in the fifteen years since its Cannes debut. It’s confident, compelling, beautifully styled with an exquisite eye for detail, has an excellent cast, and features an awesome soundtrack that combining the perfect ‘70s rock mixtape and an impeccable score by the French band Air. Plus, Kirsten Dunst is a stone fox and Josh Hartnett is at the peak of his dreamy hotness. The story details the five Lisbon sisters, luminous & bewitching teens isolated by overprotective parents (James Woods & Kathleen Turner, both great.) The girls move like fleeting visions against their Midwest landscape, eternally unattainable and impossible to forget for the neighborhood boys that narrate the tale. The Virgin Suicides remains an assured showcase for Coppola: a poignant and evocative elegy to forgotten youth and vanished innocence, a captivating vision of adolescence and suburban malaise. But it’s also darkly humorous, uniquely feminine and profoundly affecting, while also capturing with pinpoint accuracy both an era and an age.
Dir. Sofia Coppola, 1999, 35mm, 97 min.

Comedian/writer/Cinefamily friend/longtime Stains superfan Jake Fogelnest will join us to discuss the movie! They’re here and they don’t put out. Babyfaced Diane Lane and Laura Dern ignite the screen with a cinematic rebel yell, a feminist anthem of DIY force that’s both a blueprint for decades of rad music and a prescient foreshadowing of our eat-or-be-eaten media culture. But, most of all, it’s a fiery explosion of teen angst, awesome tunes and powerful women. Lane, Dern and Marin Kanter are The Stains, a misfit trio escaping their destined-for-nothing small town lives through sheer will and the sound of punk rock. On tour with the Metal Corpses (fronted by The Tubes’ Fee Waybill) and the Looters (Ray Winstone, giving one of the great actor-as-rock-star performances, and backed by The Clash’s Paul Simonon plus Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and Paul Cook), the Stains must fight on without burning out. Written by SNL scribe/Oscar-winner Nancy Dowd, and directed by legendary music impresario Lou Adler (Up In Smoke), Stains remains an influential and pointed commentary awaiting rediscovery by a new generation.
Dir. Lou Adler, 1982, 35mm, 87 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: What Have They Done To Your Daughters?

3/28/2014 - MIDNITE

Giallo! Poliziotteschi! The two great Italian genres of the 1970s — the horror-/psycho-thriller and the cop-oriented action flick — collide in this heart-stopping explosion of pure sleazoid excitement. While investigating the suicide of a young girl, hard-nosed detectives piece together details of a teenage prostitution racket, pitting our heroic crime solvers against a black-gloved, hatchet-wielding motorcycle maniac. Director Massimo Dallamano (legendary cinematographer on A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More) followed his exploitation classic What Have They Done To Solange? with another violent tale of schoolgirls in peril, adding gruesome savagery to an atmospheric police procedural, contrasting brutish thrills with stunning Techniscope cinematography. Showcasing a lush Stelvio Cipriani score and highly memorable set pieces (the frenzied, propulsive chase sequence will leave your jaw on the floor), Daughters is exciting, heavy stuff — the kind of entertainment best experienced on the big screen. And, it’s never been available on DVD, or even VHS in the States!
Dir. Massimo Dallamano, 1974, 35mm, 96 min.

We’ve been huge fans of Zola Jesus dark blend of striking operatic vocals and stark brooding electronics for a long time — and we’re eager to welcome her as she presents one of the great direct-to-video discoveries of the past few decades: Matthew Patrick’s deranged 1989 psycho thriller Hider in the House. Resident lunatic/legendary madman Gary Busey sees you, hears you, lives with you — and you don’t even know he’s there. In the bug-eyed, teeth-gnashing role that he was born to play, Busey is fresh from the asylum and dialed to eleven, squirreled away in a secret attic hideaway above the home of Mimi Rogers and Michael McKean. Matthew Patrick dives head first into the wild premise to craft a tense, sleek shocker exploring family dynamics with equal measures of wit and horror. It will have you checking behind doors and under beds, questioning the creak in the night and the sounds in the walls. And, as Zola Jesus best describes it, the whole thing is set to “GARY BUSEY INSANITY MAXIMUM.” Schedules permitting, Zola Jesus will join director Matthew Patrick to discuss the film!
Dir. Matthew Patrick, 1989, 35mm, 104 min.

Watch the trailer for “Hider In The House”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Space Jam

3/8/2014 - MIDNITE

The world of cinematic entertainment made a massive leap forward in the year 1996, combining the intense personal drama of professional athletics with the extreme possibilities of hard science fiction — and that’s just the tip of the emotional iceberg, as the world’s-greatest-b-baller Michael Jordan must save the universe’s favorite toons in the intergalactic game of their lives. His Airness slams, Bugs Bunny jams and a cavalcade of cartoon stars hoop it up in this rim-rattlin’ out-of-this-world roundball romp that’s one of the funniest animation-meets-live-action capers ever made. Bugs, Daffy, and their beloved Looney Tunes friends are under alien attack, and their fates will be determined through a full-court showdown with Mister Swackhammer (voiced by Danny DeVito) and his dream team of mean Monstars fueled by the stolen skills of Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and other NBA superstars. Laughs fly, elbows are thrown and the hottest ’90s R&B artists croon on the soundtrack. Space Jam is a slam dunk, earning the elusive “Two Thumbs Up” from Siskel & Ebert, as well as a Grammy for R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly”, and an Annie Award for technical achievement!
Dir. Joe Pytka, 1996, 35mm, 88 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Surf II

2/28/2014 - MIDNITE

Schedules permitting, Surf II co-producers George Braunstein and Ron Hamady will be here in person to introduce the show! Calling all cola freaks, buzzbombs, bleepies and weirdos: we’ve found the movie for you. Surf II is madness, mayhem, music and generally gross stupidity — all the things that make life and movies worthwhile. And the summary on the back of the original VHS box describes it best: “Menlo Schwartzer — the geekiest mad scientist of all — wants to rid the world of surfers by transforming them into garbage-ingesting zombie punks! But no way dude can he stop their most awesome party.” Featuring four-eyed ’80s icon Eddie Deezen, a young Eric Stoltz and the greatest split-screen gag this side of De Palma, plus a cast full of stoned surfers, hot babes and Reagan-era sorta-punks/new wavers. But the real jaw dropper is that this comedy meltdown of the decade is still unavailable on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming. Oh yeah, and did we mention there’s no Surf I?
Dir. Randall M. Badat, 1984, 35mm, 91 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Scavenger Hunt

A mad, mad, mad, mad Southland!

1/31/2014 - 11:59PM

After our own years-long search, we’ve finally located a 35mm print of this rollicking not-on-DVD, not-to-be-missed rarity! It’s a rib-tickling shot to the funny bone, as a mind-boggling, all-star cast competes against each other in a $200 million race against time. The will of the dearly-departed eccentric game inventor Milton Parker (Vincent Price) is specific: his fifteen would-be heirs are to participate in a highly unusual scavenger hunt, winner take all. Filled to the brim with that-guys and what’s-’er-names, Scavenger Hunt is a veritable clown car of crazed character actors, legendary stars and those long forgotten — all in a barrage of kooky cameos: Richard Benjamin, Scatman Crothers, Ruth Gordon, Cloris Leachman, Cleavon Little, Roddy McDowall, Tony Randall, a young Arnold Schwarzenegger and many, many more. Plus, it’s a wild dash through the San Diego Zoo, the streets of Hollywood and the mad, mad, mad, mad world of Southern California, as the film highlights an amazing batch of our own Southland locales. Did we mention that it’s also from Michael Schultz — the director of Car Wash, The Last Dragon and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?!
Dir. Michael Schultz, 1979, 35mm, 116 min.

Watch a clip from “Scavenger Hunt” feat. Arnold Schwarzenegger!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Ghost World

A darkly humrous adolescent requiem!

1/17/2014 - 11:59PM

Break out the Blueshammer and green hair dye, for Ghost World is coming to Cinefamily! Documentary filmmaker Terry Zwigoff’s first fiction feature is a bitingly funny adaptation of Daniel Clowes’ famed underground comic, and it’s still as razor sharp as the day it was lensed: a darkly humorous adolescent requiem, packed with pitch perfect detail and painfully realistic characters. A sardonic Thora Birch and a young Scarlett Johansson are quintessential outsiders Enid and Rebecca, teenagers adrift in post-high school ennui, suffocated by suburban mediocrity. When they cross paths with sad sack/kindred spirit Seymour (Steve Buscemi, in the bug-eyed record collector role he was born to play), their relationship will change forever. Filled with a Cinefamily wet-dream supporting cast (Illeana Douglas, Bob Balaban, Brad Renfro, Pat Healy and Teri Garr), Ghost World stands out from the teen-flick pack, creating specific, believable people and all-too-relatable cringe-inducing laughs. Essential viewing for the misfit in all of us. DJs Azul & Carlos Niño will be here to spin tunes before the show!
Dir. Terry Zwigoff, 2001, 35mm, 111 min.

Watch the trailer for “Ghost World”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Blue Velvet

Still as fresh as the day it premiered!

1/3/2014 - 11:59PM

In 1986, there emerged from the mind of David Lynch a modern-day masterpiece so startling, so provocative, and so mysterious that it opened the entire world’s eyes to a realm no one had ever seen before. A mesmerizing spiritual precursor to Twin Peaks, and a brilliant showcasing of what a visionary auteur like Lynch could do within the studio system, Blue Velvet is one of the most shattering cinematic experiences of its time, redefining small-town-on-the-big-screen life as a waking nightmare. A gruesome discovery of a human ear leads a young Kyle MacLachlan on a dangerous journey into the sinister underworld that exists in his All-American hometown. From there, the simple setup blooms into one of the ultimate stories of good and evil, and an erotically-charged, intensely disturbing exploration of the dark underbelly of the soul. Featuring Laura Dern, Dean Stockwell, Brad Dourif, Jack Nance, a fearless Isabella Rossellini and a life-changing, truly amazing Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet remains just as fresh as the day it first emerged into the world, changing our movie lives for the better.
Dir. David Lynch, 1986, 35mm, 120 min.

Watch the trailer for “Blue Velvet”!

HEAVY MIDNITES XMAS: Home Alone

Xmas child neglect, bloody vigilante combat!

12/20/2013 - MIDNITE

How did a story about child neglect, bloody vigilante combat, breaking and entering, a scary old man, tarantulas, and face-searing electric-iron catapults (among other atrocities) become a heartwarming, seasonal family blockbuster? Simple: it sprung from director Chris Columbus (in his golden post-Adventures in Babysitting, pre-Bicentennial Man moment) and writer John Hughes (in his golden post-Ferris Beuller, pre-Beethoven, Beethoven’s 2nd, Beethoven’s 3rd, Beethoven’s 4th moment). Those who saw this film when it came out in 1990 — uh, this means you, for we all saw it — will remember that it’s actually funny, lively, and excellently cast (remember the part with John Candy? No? It’s great!) Scrappy little nudnik Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin, in his golden post-Uncle Buck, pre-pubescent moment) raised the bar for precocious urchins everywhere, while seminal character actors Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern co-star as the Keystone Kops of ill-advised burglary. Also, there’s some stuff about Christmas.
Dir. Chris Columbus, 1990, 35mm, 103 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: They Live (25th Anniversary screening!)

Just as relevant and drag-out entertaining as ever!

11/29/2013 - MIDNITE

If you think the people on the street and on TV are just like you, you’re wrong — dead wrong! John Carpenter’s sci-fi stunner turns 25 this year, and today it remains both just as politically relevant and smack-down, drag-out entertaining as ever. Wrestling legend Roddy Piper stars as the iconic no-named drifter freshly wandering on the streets of Los Angeles. A cool addition to this working-class wardrobe are a newfound pair of hyper-advanced sunglasses that (conveniently) also allows him to see the subliminal conspiracy hiding behind seemingly harmless billboards everywhere, and the formaldehyde-faced alien creepies living among us. Those are some badass sunglasses. Working at the peak of his ‘80s dexterity, Carpenter is out to chew bubblegum and kick ass, assembling a dream team cast (The Rowdy One, The Thing’s Keith David, steel-eyed Meg Foster) while firing on all cylinders to craft a fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek, pre-Shepard Fairey critique on consumer culture. Featuring a legendary five-minute bare-knuckled street fight, a pounding Alan Howarth score, and more Rowdy one-liners than WrestleMania V, They Live is balls-out cult flick fun for the ages.
Dir. John Carpenter, 1988, 35mm, 94 min.

Watch the trailer for “They Live”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Valley Girl (30th Anniversary screening!)

Nic Cage is hottttttttt!

11/15/2013 - MIDNITE

It’s a preppies-vs-punkers, suburbs-vs-Hollywood heart thumper! This hoodrat Romeo and Juliet prom-com perfectly captures the slang-riddled radness of SoCal life in the ‘80s, as seen through director Martha Coolidge’s slyly satirical lens. A young, seriously hot Nicolas Cage plays Valley princess Deborah Foreman’s opposites-attract punk object of desire — but can their New Wave romance survive both societal pressures and shallow friends? Like, oh my god, totally fer sure! Electric chemistry between the two leads, a tubular supporting cast including E.G. Daily and Michael Bowen, and pitch-perfect dialog make this Los Angeles love adventure a timeless classic. Plus, the fab soundtrack will have you bopping along to Sparks, Modern English and other bitchin’ classic KROQ hits.
Dir. Martha Coolidge, 1983, 35mm, 99 min.

Co-directors Alex Winter and Tom Stern in person! This manic, mile-a-minute early-’90s monster mashup of Forrest J. Ackerman and Alfred E. Neuman lands more laughs-per-scene than any other movie of its era — and it’s also certainly the only film to feature a flashback by a common household hammer. When a vain former child star (Alex Winter, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure), his best friend (Blossom’s Michael Stoyanov) and an outspoken activist (Encino Man’s Megan Ward) stumble across a mysterious South American sideshow, they soon find themselves transformed into hideous mutant freekz at the hands of its demented proprietor (Randy Quaid). Fresh off their MTV sketch show The Idiot Box, Alex Winter and his filmmaking partner Tom Stern somehow convinced Fox to bankroll this bonkers freakblast — which was promptly dumped into only two theaters before finding its deservedly large cult following on video and cable. Jam-packed with anarchic pop-culture insanity filling every frame, plus jaw-dropping makeup FX by Screaming Mad George (Society), this gut-busting takeoff finds room to add memorable turns by John Hawkes, Mr. T, Bobcat Goldthwait and Keanu Reeves as fellow monstrosities!
Dirs. Alex Winter & Tom Stern, 1993, 35mm, 86 min. (Print courtesy of Fox Archive)

Watch the trailer for “Freaked!”

HEAVY MIDNITES: Class Act

House Party pals Kid ‘N Play make sure the party isn’t over in a fresh comedy that asks: “What happens when the school records of a brainiac dweeb (Kid, the guy with the high-rise ’do) and a street tough with attitude to spare (Play, the hip-hop style master) accidentally get switched?” It’s an urban retelling of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, you dig? These boisterous superfriends have the quick-witted dynamics, easy interplay and casual expertise of the best old-school comedy teams down pat — but with cooler clothes, and more slammin’ dance moves. Pairing the duo with a def soundtrack and hot supporting roles for Doug E. Doug and Karyn Parsons (Hilary from Fresh Prince Of Bel Air) ensures that the hip-hop flip-flop of 1992 is now the back-to-school Cinefamily jam of 2013!
Dir. Randall Miller, 1992, 35mm, 98 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Cool As Ice (co-star Kristin Minter in person!)

Drop that zero, get with the hero!

8/30/2013 - 11:59PM

Co-star Kristin Minter in person! Drop that zero and get with the hero. In the annals of star-fueled vanity projects, few have more hypercolor intensity, badass B-Boy attitude or straight-up white-boy funk than Vanilla Ice’s feature film debut. A rap-centric cinematic progeny of Marlon Brando’s The Wild One, Cool As Ice features our man as Johnny Van Owen: a freewheeling, motorcycle-riding rebel-with-a-heart-of-gold who stops in a small town, falls in love and has to battle both jealous boyfriends and brutal kidnappers, all on his way to the next gig. But first he’s gonna have to deal with one mighty pissed-off dad (Family Ties’ Michael Gross), and a crew that just don’t understand. It’s a full-on neon ‘90s invasion into backwoods Americana, disowned by the director, nearly abandoned by its studio and lensed by future cinematography Hall of Famer Janusz Kamiński (who would go on to win an Oscar for Schindler’s List just two years later.) But it’s also a raging good time, and a reminder of what it is to be young. Did we also mention the killer soundtrack, featuring “4 new songs” by the man himself?
Dir. David Kellogg, 1991, 35mm, 91 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Deathstalker & Deathstalker II

Action, passion, F-U-N!

8/2/2013 - 10:15PM

Join us as we venture to an age of great kingdoms and awesome magic, where one man dared to fight the evil of sorcery with the might of his sword: the man they called Deathstalker. It’s the ultimate quest: two of the greatest ‘80s adventures paired together theatrically for the first time anywhere!

DEATHSTALKER — 10:15pm
In the wake of Conan The Barbarian, multiplexes and late night cable were forever flooded with fantastic tales featuring loinclothed heroes. But when it comes to massive amounts of nudity, violent pillaging, epic swordplay and pig-faced monsters, this Corman-produced knockoff knew how to spin low-budget gold, spawning countless adolescent fantasies, three sequels and the career of Hollywood starlet Lana Clarkson. Sent on a perilous expedition to save the world and recapture the throne from an evil wizard, the finely chiseled Rick Hill is Deathstalker, a Boris Vallejo painting come-to-life, short on words but skilled with a blade. It’s a fight to the death as our warrior king battles faceless hordes to save a world of bikini-clad vixens!
Dir. James Sbardellati, 1983, 35mm, 80 min. (Archival print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

DEATHSTALKER II — approx. midnight
A funny, fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek comedy, this in-name-only sequel is an Evil Dead II-styled classic from the days of VHS rentals, helmed by the direct-to-video king of himself, Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall, Return of Swamp Thing). Less muscle-bound hulk and more wisecracking hero, John Terlesky here takes over the titular role. Tasked with destroying a wicked queen and her depraved sorcerer (John Lazar, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’ “Z-Man”!) in order to return a beautiful princess (scream queen Monique Gabrielle in dual roles) to power, our hero must first use his arsenal of puns and one-liners to face off with a legion of Amazon women (including G.L.O.W. goddess Matilda the Hun) and fight an army of the undead. Deathstalker II is twice the action, twice the passion and twice the F-U-N!
Dir. Jim Wynorski, 1987, 35mm, 85 min. (Archival print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

Watch the trailer for “Deathstalker”!

Watch the trailer for “Deathstalker II”!

HEAVY MIDNITES: Eraserhead

The infamous debut mindscraper of David Lynch!

7/19/2013 - MIDNITE

David Lynch’s infamous debut mindscraper is the full embodiment of pure cinema, and, thirty-five years later, has lost none of its primal power to shock, amaze and engage. A key player in the original midnight movie revolution of the Seventies, and one of those rare films that truly deserves its cult status, Eraserhead is horrifyingly original: a nightmarish landscape where stunning B&W cinematography, groundbreaking industrial sound design and a singular hallucinatory vision — one brimming with images of bodily assault and decay, sexual revulsion and unidentifiable mechanical constructions — all melt into a glorious subconscious abyss. Which is to say the film’s completely badass, a landmark jawdropper in the realm of the weird ‘n wild. A surprisingly thorough primer in the visual motifs that would come to dominate both Lynch’s later film and television work, Eraserhead is a must-see touchstone for all cinematic explorers, and is midnight viewing of the absolute highest importance.
Dir. David Lynch, 1977, 35mm, 85 min.

It’s time to get totally tubular with our favorite turtles: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo. Aside from a blissful mutual affection for nunchucks and sewer grates, we’ve got something else in common with the world’s most fearless fighting teens — for the heroes in a half-shell share our insatiable love for the food of the gods: PIZZA! Prepare to get blazingly radical with two big-screen slices of ‘90s nostalgia, plus a nearly endless celebration of our favorite food group.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES – 10:30pm
By 1990, the legend of these subterranean vigilantes could no longer be contained in comic books, cartoon shows or action figures. These masked crime fighters were headed for the big screen to kick some serious butt, in turtle suits designed by the magicians at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. When four sewer-discarded turtles are exposed to a mysterious mutagen, they grow into lean, green, pizza-eating machines, tutored in the ancient art of Ninjitsu and set loose on the mean streets of New York City. Partnering with news reporter/fashion icon April O’Neil and badass Casey Jones (Atom Egoyan favorite Elias Koteas!), our lovable heroes must stop a city-wide crime wave to rescue their mentor from the evil grasps of the villainous Master Shredder and his lethal Foot Clan.
Dir. Steve Barron, 1990, 35mm, 93 min.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE – approx. 12:20am
Go ninja, go ninja, go! The pepperoni-scarfing foursome returns in an even more pizza-obsessed adventure — and this time they’re after the glowing canister that started it all. Aided by their bodacious new bud Keno (Surf Ninjas’ Ernie Reyes, Jr.), the turtles must dive into action to defeat the evil Shredder and his devious Foot Clan once and for all. Powered by a pulse-pounding soundtrack (preaching world peace, staying in school, environmentalism and other hot-button subjects of the era), the green guys are coming out of their shells, cracking heads while cranking up the comedic banter (and their dance moves) as the film quickly propels our heroes to an all-out battle for mutant supremacy. Prepare to be shell-shocked; this is the one with Vanilla Ice freestyling his classic Ninja Rap!
Dir. Michael Pressman, 1991, 88 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES: Buffalo '66

6/28/2013 - MIDNITE

“Gallo’s battle cry makes for a fiercely humorous slice of unreality that soars even when it’s crawling in the gutter and puking on itself.” – Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle

It’s been fifteen years since Vincent Gallo’s powerhouse feature filmmaking debut splashed across theater screens, and in 2013, it still retains every last bit of its amazingness through its electric writing and direction, pitch-perfect casting and performances, a killer soundtrack and all-time cinematography by indie hero Lance Acord. A semi-autobiographical tragicomedy, Gallo plays an ex-con fresh out of the clink: alone, desperate, and in dire need of a restroom. When he kidnaps doe-eyed ballerina Christina Ricci, he may have finally found the perfect date to bring home to Mom and Pop — if only he can get that shifter car to work first. Part of what really makes this festival sensation so memorable are the mesmerizing flourishes (stand-out moments like a Ben Gazzara pantomime, and Ricci’s tap dance number), and a stellar supporting cast that includes Anjelica Huston, Kevin Corrigan, Jan-Michael Vincent and Mickey Rourke. Buffalo ’66 is a modern classic that spans time to remain moving, beautiful and the epitome of absolute cool.
Dir. Vincent Gallo, 1998, 35mm, 110 min.

Prepare for a summer scorcher as we flash back to the glittering highs and grimy lows of 1980s Hollywood. Relive the dark underbelly and white hot neon of the star-lined streets with films that dared show the world our real city, before $20 cocktails and Disney-fied developers dimmed the lights and cleaned the streets. Overflowing with lurid thrills, this is sleazoid excitement at its zenith: a hazy world of hookers, flesh, fame, fashion and boulevard nights.

ANGEL — 8:00pm
An ingenious high concept that launched a franchise and brought exploitation fanatics to their knees: Angel is a high school honor student by day, and a high-class Hollywood hooker by night. Walking the boulevard under the watchful eye of her fellow working girls, she studies hard, gets good grades and picks up safe tricks — but when local ladies of the night are picked off one by one, Angel sets off on a personal quest for vengeance. Angel is bursting with vintage gold: bikers, drag queens, punks & performers line the streets while Return of the Jedi splashes carefree across marquees. Plus, it’s stacked with the most colorful cast a low budget filmmaker could ever dream: television stars Donna Wilkes and Cliff Gorman, Cinefamily fave Susan Tyrrell, screen legend Rory Calhoun and incendiary nightclub comedian Dick Shawn!
Dir. Robert Vincent O’Neill, 1984, 35mm, 94 min.

VICE SQUAD — approx. 10:00pm“You may think you’ve heard of every sickness and perversion movies like to titter about but there are quite a few in ‘Vice Squad’ you’ve never dreamed possible!” –- Rex Reed.

If you watch only one movie about a killer pimp in your life, Vice Squad is THE ONE: a full-barreled, maximum-potential excitement launcher to the brain, the film that was always missing from your life and the one you always hoped to find. Wings Hauser burst onto the exploitation landscape with his intense, take-no-prisoners role as the ultra-psychotic, cowboy-shirted Ramrod. He’s absolutely fucking incredible here — but not only does he give the performance of a lifetime, he also sings the film’s vicious theme song “Neon Slime.” Helmed by veteran Gary Sherman (Dead & Buried, Poltergeist III) and lensed by the legendary John Alcott (The Shining, Barry Lyndon), Vice Squad is a descent into Hollywood hell — a sociological expedition into the dark, buried heart of the city. On the street, the real trick is staying alive.
Dir. Gary Sherman, 1982, 35mm, 97 min.

HEAVY MIDNITES 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY (feat. "Heavenly Bodies")

Flashdance! Jazzercise! Cardiac arrest!

6/14/2013 - 10PM

NOTE: A very special 10PM presentation by Heavy Midnights!

We love all things colorful, spastic and elastic, especially when they’re hardbodies in motion. Flashdance! Jazzercise! Cardiac arrest! We’re breaking out the big guns and kicking off our totally-not-bummer summer with the most transcendently ‘80s fun factory in Canadian film history — PLUS, a triumphant mega-party celebrating the 1-year anniversary of Heavy Midnites madness at no extra cost! Filled with wide smiles, spandexed bods and a driving pop soundtrack, Heavenly Bodies is the crown jewel in the short-lived aerobic-sploitation explosion: a non-stop, sweat-fueled mix of mesh, bump and grind. The story is an age-old classic: when Samantha and her small dancercise studio are threatened by the unscrupulous owner of a rival club, who will come out on top of their televised, winner-takes-all, dance-till-you-drop marathon workout? Grab your leotards & tights to find out — there’s bonus points for attending in your finest exercise gear!Heavenly Bodies Dir. Lawrence Dane, 1984, 35mm, 90 min.

Altered States

The untamed 1980 hallucinogenic freakout!

5/31/2013 - MIDNITE

The most untamed hallucinogenic freakout ever funded by a Hollywood studio, Ken Russell’s Altered States is an undiluted arthouse trip that still delivers crazed grindhouse thrills. Research scientist Eddie Jessup (an intense William Hurt, in his film debut) seeks ultimate truth in an obsessive study that combines sensory deprivation and powerful psychotropic drugs. But will he push too far when the subject is himself? Pushing himself in a singular direction unseen in his body of work either before or after, Russell fuses a dense screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky (Network) and his trademark visual style of dazzling excess with 2001: A Space Odyssey’s sound-and-light extravaganza and a Jodorowsky-esque mystical sheen, exploring both spirituality and the common bond of man as psychosexual body horror. Far from being mere pseudo-intellectual beard-stroking (although co-star Bob Balaban sports a forest’s worth of impressive facial hair here), Altered States is a heavy midnite mindfuck that also knows when to break out the monkey man. Bizarre, exhilarating and waaaaay far out.
Dir. Ken Russell, 1980, 102 min.

Watch the trailer for “Altered States”!

Tango & Cash (archival 35mm print!)

Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell together!

5/17/2013 - MIDNITE

Action cinema is awash with its fair share of memorable duos: Bonnie & Clyde, Butch & Sundance, Turner & Hooch — but few can match the bone-crunching highs and hilarious lows of just a single day in the life of Tango & Cash. When two of L.A.’s top cops (Sylvester Stallone & Kurt Russell together, holy shit) are framed for a crime they didn’t commit, they’re going to have to work together — even if it kills them. But it’s not just the cops that are teaming up; mega-villains Jack Palance, James Hong (Big Trouble In Little China’s Lo Pan) and a pony-tailed, cockney-accented Brion James (Blade Runner) are on the loose and out of control. Throw in stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold Teri Hatcher and prison-bound Robert Z’Dar (that face!) and Tango & Cash (co-directed by Albert Magnoli, director behind Purple Rain) becomes the culmination of Eighties action: buff dudes, big guns, monster trucks, maniacal villainy, non-stop one-liners, enough cocaine to incapacitate an entire battalion, and the best freeze-frame ending of its decade — all set to a bouncy score by Harold “Axel F” Faltermeyer. Have we mentioned that this movie’s fun?
Dir. Andrei Konchalovsky & Albert Magnoli, 1989, 35mm, 104 min. (Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

The greatest HK goregasm ever!

4/26/2013 - MIDNITE

The greatest gore-soaked Hong Kong prison breakout love story of 1991 — and STILL the Category III (HK’s equivalent to “NC-17”) mug melter that tops all international brain smashers in its ability to make an audience pump their fists in an orgiastic ecstasy of blood and violence! In the dystopian future of 2001, the prison system has been privatized, and is run by monsters far worse than the criminals they rule. Enter martial artist/former music student/invincible headcrusher Ricky, sent to prison for avenging the death of his girlfriend. As Ricky’s innate sense of justice repeatedly sends him into battle, piles of prosthetics and well-stocked blood hoses are put to good use, for he murders with his bare hands every single baddie in the whole clink, in ascending levels of gory absurdity. What we’re getting at is: never has the term “must be seen to be believed” been more appropriate than when communicating the radness of Riki-Oh. With every frame filled to previously-unimagined levels of ultra violent insanity, it remains the most eye-popping, over-the-top martial arts gut-buster ever conceived!
Dir. Lam Nai-choi, 1991, 35mm, 91 min.

The Sandlot (20th Anniversary screening!)

Co-star Chauncey Leopardi in person!

4/12/2013 - MIDNITE

Co-star Chauncey Leopardi in person! Heroes get remembered, but legends never die! It’s boys, baseball and a really big dog, as the Stand By Me of our National Pastime slides into the Cinefamily, in celebration of its 20th anniversary. Flashback to the Sixties, and fifth-grader Scotty (narrating in true Wonder Years style) is in a pickle — he’s just moved into town, everyone thinks he’s a dork, and he can’t even throw a baseball right. That is, until he joins a local gang of misfits who welcome him into their scruffy fold, and their neighborhood pickup game. This is a rare sports film that couldn’t care less about who wins or who loses; it’s about growing up and facing your fears, and as the kids try one goofy plan after another to get the ball back, the story gently leaves the realm of the possible, venturing into the exaggerations common to all childhood legends. Join Ham, Squints, Yeah-Yeah and other friends for a magical summer of games, wild adventures, first kisses and fearsome confrontations — as the warm nostalgia of this freewheeling family classic captures the fun, friendship and possibilities of youth.
Dir. David M. Evans, 1993, 35mm, 101 min.

Hard Target (20th Anniversary screening!)

JCVD kicking ass in New Orleans!

3/29/2013 - MIDNITE

Superstar Hong Kong action director John Woo (Hard Boiled, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) made his American debut with this Cajun-flavored update of The Most Dangerous Game, exploding Hollywood and expanding the possibilities for outrageous action (and accents), while simultaneously ushering in Universal Studios’ mid-’90s golden age of Jean-Claude Van Damme! When a woman hires a mysterious drifter (JCVD) to guide her through New Orleans in search of her missing father, they discover a deadly game of cat and mouse, nearly destroy the entire French Quarter, battle Lance Henriksen, AND run into Wilford Brimley as JCVD’s uncle. And, yes, this is the one where Van Damme punches a snake! Jam-packed with impressive stunt work and pyrotechnics, flying kicks, slo-mo gun battles and Woo’s trademark style, Hard Target is everything you could ask for in a night out at the movies!
Dir. John Woo, 1993, 35mm, 97 min.

Watch the trailer for “Hard Target”!

Krull (30th Anniversary screening, star Ken Marshall in person!)

Archival 35mm print!

3/15/2013 - MIDNITE

Journey into a mystical time and place — one which belongs to neither the past nor the present, where extraordinary creatures of myth work their incredible magic, and where a horrific, omnipotent Beast is the ruler. This is the planet of Krull — and it all comes to life in this visually spectacular fantasy tailor-made for teens fluent in prog-rock album covers, RPGs ‘n D&Ds. When Princess Lyssa is kidnapped by dark forces, Prince Colwyn must lead an unlikely band of thieves and misfits (including a Cyclops and a young Liam Neeson) to the rescue. As an adventure can only be as exciting as the villains encountered, Krull is bolstered by a panoply of rad, freaky monsters, from the silent stormtroopers with slithery alien worms inside their noggins to the epic stop-motion Crystal Spider, and the skyscraper-sized Beast to beat them all! Plus, did we mention the non-stop laser battles — and the ancient deadly boomerang that is the Glaive? Archival 35mm print! Plus, star Ken Marshall will be here in person for a Q&A after the film!
Dir. Peter Yates, 1983, 35mm, 121 min.

Big Trouble In Little China

Archival 35mm print!

2/1/2013 - MIDNITE

At the perfect intersection of ancient Chinese mysticism, rampaging maniacs and big rig trucking lays the best actor/director combo of the ‘80s having the most foot-flyin’, laser-blastin’ fun of their careers. Director John Carpenter distills decades of Hong Kong cinema, wizard battles and chop-socky theatrics, all while re-teaming with his BFF, the hilarious hunk/former Disney star Kurt Russell. Together, they unleash ultimate ass-kicking in the search for a girl with green eyes through the mysterious underworld of Chinatown. Featuring rapid-fire, eminently quotable dialogue, a pre-Sex In The City Kim Cattrall, full-blown Russell-mania at its glorious height, and the legendary James Hong in the role of a lifetime as the villainous Lo Pan, Big Trouble In Little China is maximum-concentration cinematic TNT! This big screen brawler comes to the Cinefamily screen from a rare 35mm print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive. And remember, it’s all in the reflexes —
Dir. John Carpenter, 1986, 35mm, 99 min. (Archival 35mm print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive)

Watch the trailer for “Big Trouble In Little China”!

The Neverending Story

Who doesn’t want to ride a luckdragon?

1/18/2013 - MIDNITE

For everyone that has ever made a wish, believed in a fantasy, or had a dream — hold on tight as an atom bomb of imagination, innocence & amazement bursts onto the Cinefamily screen in 35mm! As an existential Nothingness threatens the land of Fantasia, a young hero is assigned to complete a hazardous quest. As much a magical fairytale as it is about the magic of how an epic tale unfolds, The NeverEnding Story remains one of the most exciting and idea-filled adventures of the 1980s. Experience a pre-CGI fantasy trip of dazzling wonder (brought to you by the director of Das Boot) and revisit your old friends Bastian, Atreyu, Artax, and Falkor (the cuddliest flying dog monster this side of your deepest slumber), as they brave the most unforgettable journey of them all. C’mon, who doesn’t want to ride a luckdragon?
Dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 1984, 35mm, 102 min.

Repo Man (co-star Olivia Barash in person!)

Still as epic as it ever was!

1/4/2013 - MIDNITE

The life of a repo man is always intense — INTENSELY AWESOME! When deciding which film to kick off a new year of cult midnights, the answer was obvious: Alex Cox’s punk rock odyssey perfectly encapsulates our city and our attitude better than nearly any other film of the last 2,000 years. Emilio Estevez revolts from his no-future Reagan-era life, wanders the streets of L.A. and joins forces with Harry Dean Stanton to repossess cars, do speed, get into tense situations and generally live by the Repo Code. When a mysterious cop-zapping Chevy Malibu enters the picture, things truly get weird. Cox’s debut feature remains his ultimate genre smash-up of post-punk spunk, offbeat philosophy, teenage humor, wild sci-fi and biting satire. Featuring career-great performances from character actor legends Tracey Walter and Sy Richardson, and a raging soundtrack from Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Iggy Pop and Fear, this iconic thrill ride is still as epic as it ever was — and we are flipping pumped to present it in 35mm! Co-star Olivia Barash will be here in person to give opening remarks before the film!
Dir. Alex Cox, 1984, 35mm, 92 min.

Watch the trailer for “Repo Man”!

Rocky IV

Merry Christmas, kid!

12/21/2012 - MIDNITE

Merry Christmas, kid! Rocky IV goes (beyond) the distance with more patriotism than a lifetime of Fourth of Julys, a lovably wacky robot, and the most heart-pounding montages/mind-spasming freeze frames of the ‘80s. This Part IV out-Part IVs all other franchises’ Part IVs, distilling the series’ iconography to song-length blasts of unbridled ENTERTAINMENT. Following the devastating loss of best bud Apollo Creed, Rocky (Sylvester Stallone, who also wrote & directed) must fight Cold War super villain Ivan Drago (Fulbright scholar Dolph Lundgren, making a bone-shattering impact in his first starring role) on Christmas Day, to determine the fate of the free world. Will Rocky pummel this Russian Frankenstein, who looks like he uses Italians as dental floss? Join Rocky’s pals Carl Weathers, Burt Young and James Brown(!) at ringside, to see their main man get the holy bejeezus beaten outta him by the biggest damn commie you’ll ever lay your eyes on — and join Cinefamily as we screen a 35mm print of one of our favorite holiday treats!
Dir. Sylvester Stallone, 1985, 35mm, 90 min.

Watch the trailer for “Rocky IV”!

Alien: Resurrection (15th Anniversary screening!)

11/23/2012 - MIDNITE

A bold statement: Alien: Resurrection is worthy of rediscovery — not just for the talent behind the screen (helmed by City of Lost Children/Delicatessen visionary Jean-Pierre Jeunet, scripted by Avengers writer/director Joss Whedon, lensed by Se7en director of photography Darius Khondji), but also for its dark surrealistic humor, comic book tone and wild closure to the Ripley saga. Set 200 years after Alien 3, Sigourney Weaver is a cloned Ellen Ripley, created by the U.S. military (and genre icon Brad Dourif!) to make a new generation of super-Aliens. City of Lost Children co-stars Ron Perlman and Dominique Pinon reunite as space mercenaries, caught between making a quick buck and the vicious teeth of the deadly new breed — and, of course, Winona Ryder’s on board as well. Featuring a fantastic John Frizzell score and a tense, terrifying and dangerous franchise-highlight underwater escape, Alien: Resurrection is best experienced loud and on the big screen. Like Prometheus, Resurrection was attacked by conservatives as a “pro-abortion” tract upon its original release; the themes are more relevant than ever during this hot-button election year. Join us as we celebrate the film’s 15th anniversary with a 35mm screening!
Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997, 35mm, 109 min.

Watch the trailer for “Alien: Resurrection”!

Aliens

11/9/2012 - MIDNITE

Before tackling giant ocean liners or the future of 3D, James Cameron blasted out this masterpiece of technical marvel, high tension and peace through superior firepower. Sidestepping the horror focus of Ridley Scott’s first film, Aliens ratchets up the action, full-blooded machismo and mechanical fascination, all while cementing Sigourney Weaver as the female action hero of the ‘80s (garnering her an Oscar nomination and a Time magazine cover) and serving as a critique of America’s involvement in Vietnam. Jam-packed with a sci-fi dream team cast (Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton & Jenette Goldstein as badass space marines; Lance Henriksen as android Bishop; Paul Reiser as an oily corporate representative), thoroughly entertaining, eminently quotable and featuring an impressive array of physical visual effects (pre-CGI overload!), Aliens remains one of the most exciting adventures ever sent into space.
Dir. James Cameron, 1986, 35mm, 137 min.

Watch the trailer for “Aliens”!

Purple Rain

The Purple One in 35mm!

9/21/2012 - MIDNITE

Before scientists confirmed the formal discovery of the Higgs boson, Prince had already located the key to limitless sexual frenzy in this Oscar-winning crowning achievement of ‘80s culture. In his semi-autobiographical film debut, Prince plays The Kid, a Minneapolis club musician as alienated by his tumultuous home life as he is talented on stage. Sharp-dressed & quick-tongued scene-stealer Morris Day (from the band The Time) is his rival, both in music and in affection for sultry singer Apollonia. As the competition heats up, shirts are removed, hips gyrate, guitars ejaculate and Prince and the Revolution scorch the soundtrack with hits “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” and of course, “Purple Rain.” But will the power of music be able to transcend & transform The Kid’s life as well as our own? Find out for yourself when a rare 35mm print of this energizing musical phenomenon lights up the Cinefamily screen!
Dir. Albert Magnoli, 1984, 35mm, 111 min.

1990: The Bronx Warriors

A post-nuke adventure like no other!

9/7/2012 - MIDNITE

Welcome to the future: in a catastrophic uprising, where the Bronx is declared a high-risk district and the cops have officially washed their hands of the whole enchilada, the dregs of society inhabiting a colorful post-Escape From New York/post-The Warriors urban wasteland have violently rebelled. Armed with spikes, blades and skull-adorned choppers, “Trash” and his Riders engage in a nonstop war against cannibals and other sentient crud — and the results are killer! Marauding manimals, sci-fi thug weaponry, cutthroat gangs (bikers! hockey players! pimps! tap dancers!), flamethrower-wielding police on horseback, and all-time performances by Fred “The Hammer” Williamson and teenaged Marco di Gregorio (Thunder Warrior aka Italian Rambo) make this vicious “re-imagining” of the John Carpenter and Walter Hill classics a high point in the Enzo G. Castellari (The Inglorious Bastards, Keoma) canon. Delivering everything you want from an early ‘80s post-nuke adventure, this unforgettable descent into the futuristic inferno screens from an insanely rare original 35mm print!
Dir. Enzo Castellari, 1982, 35mm, 86 min.

Joysticks

“This is lowbrow entertainment in its highest form: an ideally balanced comedic laserchainsaw of bodily function gags and highly advanced insanity — every frame is drive-in outrageousness incarnate, and Jon Gries’ performance as King Vidiot is nothing short of spastic genius.” — Zack Carlson, Destroy All Movies

Legendary exploitation filmmaker Greydon Clark (Without Warning, Black Shampoo, Satan’s Cheerleaders) distills everything great about the 1980s (punks, nerds, valley girls, wild fashion, and Pac-Man) into one video game-fueled, late-night partyblast! Will a local businessman (Joe Don Baker) succeed in shutting down this “den of juvenile delinquency” or will saner heads, faster fingers and shiny quarters prevail? Will leather-clad King Vidiot (Jon Gries) and his troupe of high-tech video addicts ever be satiated? Featuring extensive use of classic machines like Galaxian, Pole Position, Super Pac-Man and Satan’s Hollow — in addition to an all-time-great theme song and an epic battle against parental disapproval — this is a film for people totally into the neverending pursuit of brain-shattering FUUUUUNNNNNNNNN!!!!
Dir. Greydon Clark, 1983, 35mm, 88 min.

Watch the trailer for “Joysticks”!

Rolling Thunder

Burn down the screen in 35mm!

7/20/2012 - MIDNITE

“The most violent sneak reaction of recent years…the audience actually got up and tried to physically abuse the studio personnel present among them.” — William Goldman’s “Adventures In The Screen Trade”, on the subject of a 1977 Rolling Thunder sneak preview

A blistering, slow-burn hook-handed revenge thriller/damaged psyche explosion from screenwriter Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Hardcore) and director John Flynn (The Outfit, Steven Seagal’s Out for Justice!) What happens when you return from war, and evil bastards take your wife, child AND YOUR HAND? Hollywood has a long and frequent history of serving up how horrifying the Vietnam War and its aftermath were — but Rolling Thunder probes way, waaaay deeper into the plagued mind of the troubled Vietnam vet than any other film on earth. Influencing a generation of filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino famously named his releasing company after this one) and single-handedly levelling a decade of drive-in-goers, Rolling Thunder remains one of the most powerful films of the ‘70s. See William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones burn down the screen in 35mm!
Dir. John Flynn, 1977, 35mm, 95 min.

Watch the trailer for “Rolling Thunder”!

Never Too Young Too Die

Gene Simmons vs. John Stamos!

7/6/2012 - MIDNITE

Pack your bags and prepare for the RIDE OF YOUR LIFE, as gymnast heartthrob Lance Stargrove (a pre-”Full House” John Stamos!) avenges the death of his superspy father (former James Bond-er George Lazenby), meets-cute with the sexy Danja Deering (Prince protégé Vanity), and fights to save the world from hermaphrodite megavillain/sultry chanteuse Velvet Von Ragner (Gene Simmons of Kiss, in the role he was born to play.) The ‘80s pizza party masterpiece that you’ve waited a lifetime to discover, Never Too Young To Die delivers on its promise of outrageous action, radical style, loud tunes and big hair, while simultaneously re-examining gender roles in modern cinema. Not to be missed and not on DVD, this Reagan-era time-bomb is screening from what may be the only remaining 35mm print in the known universe!
Dir. Gil Bettman, 1986, 35mm, 97 min.

From the director of the balls-to-the-wall Torque comes Detention, a genre-bent hyperkinetic smashterpiece that destroys every teen movie concept in an ambitious blink-and-you’ll-miss-it/WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING?! brainscraper. Teen hunkapalooza Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games’ Peeta) headlines the students of Grizzly Lake High as they race to outlast a vicious killer ripped from their local multiplex, while making various stops for time-travel, BitTorrenting, body-swapping, costume parties and your not-so-typical teen romance. Visionary music video director Joseph Kahn (Brandy & Monica’s “The Boy is Mine”, Britney Spears’ “Toxic”) largely self-financed this ‘90s-obsessed, fast-paced alternate universe combination of pop culture mania and bizarre suburban landscape, only to have it abandoned by its distributor on a mere ten screens across the country (the lone L.A. area run was in fucking Burbank). We’re rescuing the film for one night only and in 35mm –- be the friend who saw it FIRST and ON THE BIG SCREEN. Writer/director Joseph Kahn joins Hollywood Reporter contributing editor Todd Gilchrist for a Q&A after the film!
Dir. Joseph Kahn, 2011, 35mm, 93 min.